FOUNDER & CEO

Karen McGuigan is an education consultant with a goal to improve attainment levels and spread her love of maths to everyone.  She studied maths at a degree level as part of her Masters in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College and brings a wealth of real life experience to her work. 

Originally from Northern Ireland, she lives in Surrey, England with her partner, Mike, and three sons, Dexter, Lance and Cal.  She set up The Maths Mum® in 2018 with the aim of ‘Helping parents help their children’.  Inspired by her middle son Lance, who has Down syndrome, she began the development of the Maths For Life programme in 2019. 

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Sam does the ‘creative stuff’ for Maths For Life. With a degree in animation, her imagination knows no bounds. Following several years in marketing, communication and PR, Sam retrained as a teacher and taught in a local primary school for several years.

She was first introduced to Maths For Life as a user… when she was Lance’s year 5 teacher. She was so impressed she joined the company in 2022. Sam loves to learn and is constantly coming up with new ideas for resources, social media & marketing campaigns and website development. Her favourite phrase is ‘is it on brand?’

OPERATIONS MANAGER

Suzie joined us in January 2024.  With her corporate background in the automotive industry and administrative experience supporting several small businesses,  she is constantly streamlining processes and implementing operational improvements. Operations is the backbone of the company! If you can automate it, Suzie will find a way. With slicker operational processes and Suzie’s spreadsheet, database and Zapier magic, she has been pivotal in moving forward key strategic projects.

RESOURCES MANAGER

Amy Jones joined the team in March 2024, after gaining hands-on experience delivering the Maths For Life programme as a teaching assistant. Amy has a varied background in arts education, SEN support and children’s mental health and has a love of all things creative. Within all of Amy’s roles, she has enjoyed creating personalised resources for the children and young people that she’s worked with.

Amy has used her experience to develop our resource library and is continually striving to be create accessible, engaging and fun resources which appeal to students of any age.  Her mantra is, ‘If you can’t find it, make it!’

ASSESSMENT MANAGER

Kayleigh joined the team in October 2024 having spent 10 years as a teacher, working with children with a wide range of Special Educational Needs. Kayleigh first came across Maths for Life in its beginning years when she was Maths For Life ambassador, Ella’s, teacher.

After stepping away from the classroom, she came on board to help create resources—and she’s been bringing her creativity and love of organisation to the role ever since. Whether it’s building engaging learning tools or diving into spreadsheets and data, Kayleigh combines creativity and precision to support learners in the best way possible.

DEVELOPMENT AND ADMIN MANAGER

Sue Hardy officially joined the team in January 2023. She sits on the customer side of the business connecting all the dots!

Following an early career with the BBC, she became a SEN Teaching Assistant working in both a mainstream and specialist school. She knows what both staff and students need on the ground. A modern languages graduate, she also brings an expert understanding of the English language and loves correcting grammar.

CONSULTANT

Jos brings a wealth of corporate, charity and networking experience to the table.  Her role is to help steer the growth of the business ensuring that processes and procedures are embedded and robust.  Jos’s hands-on experience in the charitable sector led to the collaboration with Oxfordshire County Council to instigate the first county-wide pilot of the Maths For Life Programme. 

More personally, Jos is a parent of a young person with Down Syndrome, and one of the earliest adopters of the Maths For Life programme. 

GRAPHIC DEISGNER

Dexter, Karen’s eldest son, uses Adobe Illustrator to create and supply graphics for the Maths For Life resources in spare time. His first graphics appeared in the Weekly Workbooks and he completed work experience with the team proving himself a very valuable member. He hopes to use his creations towards attaining a GCSE in Design & Technology.

MATHS FOR LIFE AMBASSADORS

Lance Pollard, star of the ‘The Maths Mum® and Lance talk Maths’ series and chief tester of all content.

Ella Steinhardt, star of the ‘Maths For Life Lessons with Ella & Lance’ series and head of quality control.

Lance and Ella have been best friends since they met when they were a couple of months old. They are an amazing double act who truly inspire a love of maths.