Making maths work for girls: why confidence comes before perfection
When it comes to supporting students in maths, it's tempting to focus purely on outcomes: test scores, homework completion rates, and targets met. But while these indicators can tell us something about progress, they rarely reflect a deeper — and often overlooked — truth: how students experience maths matters just as much as whether they can pass an exam. And for girls in particular, how maths is taught and assessed can have long-lasting effects on their confidence, aspirations, and future.
At Tassomai, the key to improving girls' attainment in maths lies not in demanding more perfection, but in building more confidence.
The Gender Confidence Gap in Maths
According to National Numeracy’s 2023 report on Number Confidence and Social Mobility, there is a persistent and troubling gap between girls’ and boys’ confidence with numbers. Girls are more likely to describe negative experiences with maths at school, more likely to describe themselves as “not a numbers person,” and more likely to experience maths anxiety, even though they often outperform boys in exams during secondary school.
This lack of confidence has profound implications. It affects subject choices post-16, access to STEM careers, and even intergenerational attitudes towards numeracy at home, with research showing that mothers often feel anxious helping their children with maths, in part due to their own negative experiences.
The issue isn’t ability. It’s environment. Girls can do maths — but the way we teach and assess it often gets in the way.
The Hidden Cost of Perfectionism
Some platforms and programmes build their philosophy around rigid compliance: every question must be answered; 100% must be achieved; homework cannot be skipped. While this might sound like academic rigour, in practice, it can reinforce the very behaviours and anxieties that push girls away from maths in the first place.
For students already grappling with perfectionism or fear of failure — traits disproportionately seen in high-achieving girls — these expectations can become overwhelming. The result is a toxic mix of stress, avoidance, and a growing belief that maths “just isn’t for me.”
What might seem like a structured, high-standards system for some students becomes, for others, a quietly discouraging one.
How Tassomai Does It Differently
Tassomai is built on a different principle: that consistent, confidence-building practice is more effective — and more equitable — than rigid perfectionism.
We’ve upgraded our maths content — and we’re giving schools the opportunity to get it free in 25/26!
Low-stakes, daily micro-quizzes encourage frequent engagement without the fear of failure. Students can try, learn, and improve without the pressure to get everything right the first time.
Adaptive technology meets learners where they are, adjusting to their pace and progress, rather than holding everyone to the same bar at the same speed.
Progress is celebrated through visual feedback, like the Tassomai Tree, helping students see their effort grow over time.
Teachers are given rich insights, but without needing to penalise incomplete homework or chase arbitrary targets. This enables intervention based on understanding, not punishment.
All of this creates an environment where doing maths feels achievable, not intimidating. It reduces anxiety, builds habits, and helps students (especially girls) build the belief that they can succeed.
What Success Looks Like
When we talk about success in maths, we often mean exam results. But if we’re serious about closing the gender gap, we need to talk about something deeper: maths as a confidence practice. We need to measure whether students feel empowered to keep trying, whether they feel supported in failure, and whether they believe they can improve.
Girls don’t need more pressure. They need permission to learn without fear.
That’s the space Tassomai is proud to create.
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Collaboration with the WISE Campaign
This guide has been made in collaboration with The WISE Campaign for gender balance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM).
WISE champions the advancement of women in STEM across the UK by encouraging women and girls to value and pursue STEM-related courses in school and in their future careers.