Neuro-Affirming Maths in Australia | Times Tables Games

The term gets used a lot, so let me be precise about what it actually describes in a classroom maths tool. A neuro-affirming approach starts from the position that cognitive difference is variation, not deficit. It means the software does not create extra barriers for learners whose brains process information differently, whether that is a student with ADHD who is easily overwhelmed by flashing timers, an autistic child who needs predictability and clear structure, or a child with dyscalculia for whom arbitrary speed pressure actively blocks understanding.

In practice, neuro-affirming edtech tends to share a few qualities. It separates fluency-building from timed performance. It gives learners control over pacing. It responds to errors with support rather than penalty. And it does not dress anxiety up as motivation.

That last point is the one I keep coming back to. So much of the dominant maths software on the market is built on the assumption that urgency equals engagement. The leaderboards, the countdown clocks, the "beat your score" mechanics: they may work for some children. But for a significant number, especially those with ADHD or maths anxiety, they create exactly the kind of stress response that closes down learning rather than opening it up.

The core issue is this: a timed maths drill does not measure mathematical understanding. It measures mathematical understanding under pressure. For a neurotypical child who happens to be confident, the distinction may not matter much. For a child with ADHD who loses focus the moment a timer appears, or a child with dyscalculia for whom number retrieval is genuinely harder, the timed format introduces a separate cognitive load that has nothing to do with whether they actually understand multiplication.

When I looked into the research base on maths anxiety, one thing that stood out was how consistently early negative experiences with timed testing show up as a contributing factor. Children who learn to associate maths with the feeling of being too slow, or publicly wrong, often carry that association well into secondary school and beyond. The maths anxiety is not incidental. The format helps create it.

This is not a fringe concern. In the early conversations we are having with schools, maths anxiety comes up constantly, across year groups and across learner profiles. Teachers are not struggling to identify the problem. They are struggling to find tools that do not make it worse.

One of the things I find most interesting about the NSW procurement shift is that it signals a change in who schools are designing for. For a long time, edtech was implicitly built for the average learner in the middle of the bell curve. The child who was already engaged, already reasonably confident, already not bringing a diagnosis to the lesson. Neuro-affirming design centres the children who have most often been failed by the default approach.

For a child with autism, that might mean clear, consistent structure with no unexpected changes in format or reward mechanics. For a child with ADHD, it might mean shorter task bursts with genuine agency over what comes next. For a child with dyscalculia, it means repeated, patient exposure to number relationships without the humiliation of a visible countdown.

What these learners often share is not an inability to learn maths. It is a history of maths tools that were not built with them in mind. The moment you remove the pressure mechanic and give a child room to think, the picture changes.

As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, "We started XTables Champions because we kept seeing bright kids who'd decided they were bad at maths, and almost always, the tool had done that to them, not the maths itself."

If you are making purchasing decisions for a primary school, in Australia or anywhere else, the questions NSW schools are now asking are worth borrowing. Does this tool accommodate different processing speeds without penalising slower thinkers? Does it support a child who needs to pause, re-read, or take a breath? Does it treat an error as data, or as a failure?

The answers to those questions tell you a great deal about whether a tool was genuinely designed for all learners, or whether inclusion was bolted on afterwards as a checkbox.

At XTables Champions, everything we build starts from the position that maths confidence matters as much as maths fluency, and that the two are connected. We focus on times tables because that is where so many children first hit a wall, but our approach is deliberately low-pressure. We do not use countdown mechanics designed to induce anxiety. We do not surface public leaderboards that tell a struggling child exactly where they rank. We work on building the underlying confidence that makes fluency possible.

We are a young company, and I will be honest about that. We are not claiming to have the market figured out. But we are paying close attention to what teachers and schools are telling us, and what we keep hearing is that children who have been written off as "just not maths people" respond very differently when the pressure is taken away.

If you are a teacher, SENCO, or school leader in Australia or the UK thinking about how to better support students with ADHD, autism, dyscalculia, or maths anxiety, I would genuinely love to hear from you. Not to deliver a pitch, but to have a real conversation about what your learners need and whether XTables Champions could be part of the answer.

You can get in touch with the team directly through xtableschampions.com. Tell us about your school and the learners you are trying to reach. That conversation is always where the useful stuff starts.