About Us
The mission, the story, and the team behind the Explicit Mathematics Program.
Our mission
We exist to create mathematics teaching resources so good that every teacher can lift every student to their full mathematical potential.
Our vision
We'll know we're done when every student fulfils their mathematical potential, taught by teachers who know the maths, know how to teach it, and love their work.
Meet the team
Dr Wendy Taylor
David Morkunas
Ollie Lovell
Toni Hatten-Roberts
Michael Roberts
Verity Lavery
Juhi Nijhawan
Kat O'Rourke
Our Story
The Explicit Mathematics Program was hatched, separately, in the minds of EMP Co-founders Ollie Lovell, Toni Hatten-Roberts, and Michael Roberts long before the first line of the program was ever written. These three educators, through their extensive work in their own schools, and supporting teachers across many schools, had clearly seen a need for a highly structured mathematics program to support primary teachers help every student to reach their mathematical potential.
Australia was already seeing phenomenal student growth through structured literacy instruction. The time was right for structured mathematics too.
Wheels Set In Motion
It wasn't until Toni, Michael, and Ollie were brought together in May of 2022 at the Science of Learning Leadership Accelerator, run by the formidable Elena Douglas' Knowledge Society, that wheels were set in motion. After hearing Toni and Michael present during the day, Ollie approached Toni over dinner to ask, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking about primary mathematics instruction?" It was clear that, though working across different schools and states up until that point, all three educators had come to the same conclusions about what primary mathematics teachers need to maximise their students' success: a scripted mathematics program, including everything from lesson plans, student workbooks, daily reviews, and assessments.
A few short months later in September, Toni, Michael, and Ollie travelled together to the UK to visit high-performing schools and learn all they could about high-quality instruction and the phenomenal progress being made overseas. They came back with new insights and the resolve to make the Explicit Mathematics Program a reality.
The team is assembled
Toni and Ollie began to lay the foundations of some of the structures for the EMP, but they still didn't have the brain power that they needed. It was time to build the team.
The first to join was Dr Wendy Taylor. Ollie had seen Wendy's phenomenal LaTeX and curriculum sequencing skills through the creation of her own mathematics program in prior years. That, in addition to her phenomenal mathematical knowledge (PhD in pure mathematics) and incredible attention to detail, made it clear she would be the perfect person to lead the creation of the EMP's Daily Reviews & Quick Teaches, a role that grew into Director of Curriculum.
Next came David Morkunas to take on the core work of lesson development and writing. Toni and Michael had seen Mork present at a number of forums, and Ollie had seen him teach and carefully reviewed the lesson plans he developed as a team leader at his school. After speaking in-depth with Dave about his passion for mathematics teaching, the founders couldn't think of a better candidate to become Director of Lesson Development & Lead Author.
With the founding team assembled, around mid-2023 they started in earnest creating the program, outside of school and work hours and on a shoestring budget.
The trial year
Working around the clock (especially Wendy and Dave!), the program was ready for trialling by Term 1 2024 in a number of schools across the country. Big thanks to Serpentine Primary School and Sunshine Heights Primary, among others, whose generous and incredibly valuable feedback helped shape the program.
Launch
The full F-2 program launched ready for Term 1, 2025. We were absolutely blown away that over 180 schools joined in that first year, and so glad to have Verity Lavery join as our phenomenal General Manager to help build the systems to scale and support almost 900 teachers and over 14,000 students.
The program grows
Off the back of our initial results and word of mouth, the program hit over 350 schools in 2026 and has gone international, with schools in New Zealand and the US now using the program, and a whole school district in Canada jumping on board.
With thanks to Martin Ravindran for his work developing the first MSSP lessons and resources, to Shahid Hussain for our coding, to Linda Baratta and Kimberly Brugger for proofreading, to Sahar Majid for our graphics, to Sandra Lombardo and Jacky Abeysinghe for administration support, to Rahul Tiwari for the website, and to Edward Wang for our coding structures. Thank you also to the teachers, leaders and students at our trial school, and to the colleagues, friends and family who have supported this project.
Dave, Wendy, Toni, and Ollie at the first team meeting of EMP