MathedUp — Competitive Structure & Navigation Report

How the leading maths revision sites are organised, benchmarked against MathedUp, with prioritised recommendations

_Research date: 2026-06-16. Focus: information architecture (IA) and navigation — how content is organised and how users find their way — NOT visual styling or content quality. Working notes + sources: research/_notes.md._

1. Executive summary

I analysed 13 of the most popular UK (and global benchmark) maths revision sites across MathedUp's three segments — GCSE, A-Level, 11+ — looking only at structure and wayfinding. Two findings dominate:

A. The whole market navigates by EXAM BOARD first. MathedUp doesn't.

Physics & Maths Tutor, Save My Exams, Revisely, BBC Bitesize, MME and Seneca all make the exam board (AQA/Edexcel/OCR/…) a first-class, early, persistent axis — because a student's mental model is "I sit AQA; show me AQA." MathedUp's content is largely board-agnostic (one shared set, with board pills only inside the exam-question generator). The good news: MathedUp already captures each student's exam board (profiles.exam_boards, set at onboarding) — it just doesn't yet use it to drive navigation. This is the single highest-leverage structural change, and it's mostly a wiring job, not a rebuild.

B. MathedUp's per-topic "everything in one card" model is genuinely better than most of the field — lean into it.

Almost every competitor splits a topic across separate resource-type pages (Save My Exams: you pick "Revision Notes" or "Topic Questions" or "Past Papers", each a different page, then find your topic again). MathedUp's takeaway card bundles worksheet + exam + quiz + video + game + a RAG self-rating in one place per topic. That is a real differentiator most sites lack. The structural opportunity is to make that card the destination the whole site routes you to, and to add a guided rhythm within it.

The four biggest structural moves (detail in §7):

1. Make exam board (+ GCSE tier) a first-class, persistent navigation axis — finish wiring the saved board preference into takeaway/exam/paper defaults; add a board chooser on entry.
2. Collapse the qualification hierarchy to one consistent spine — GCSE (Higher/Foundation as a toggle, not two pages + a legacy page), A-Level, Further Maths, 11+, Games — and retire the legacy takeaway.
3. Add a guided "where do I start" entry + a difficulty/grade lens — turn MathedUp's existing RAG + quiz data into a "focus next" / "revisit" router (the thing Khan, Seneca, Atom and Sparx all do, and MathedUp is 70% of the way to).
4. Make the homepage a router, not a poster — "pick course + board → land in your takeaway", and "continue where you left off" for signed-in users.

2. Top recommendations at a glance

★ = impact, ● = effort (filled = more).

3. How the best sites are structured — the conventions

Across the 13 sites, two organising spines recur, plus a set of shared conventions.

Spine A — the revision library: Board → Tier → Topic → Resource

Used by PMT, Save My Exams, Revisely, MME, BBC Bitesize (and Seneca's course selection). You choose your board (and at GCSE, your tier) and then browse topics; each topic offers a predictable set of resource types. It optimises for "find the right resource for MY board". Weakness: it can bury topics under resource-type pages (Save My Exams) and offers little guidance on what to do.

Spine B — the learning path: Course → Unit → Lesson → Mastery

Used by Khan Academy, Seneca, Sparx, Atom, Dr Frost. The system sequences you and tells you what next via mastery (Khan), forgetting-curve/spaced-repetition (Seneca), adaptive difficulty (Sparx/Atom) or analytics gaps (Dr Frost). It optimises for "tell me what to revise and when".

The strongest products combine them: a board-faithful library with a progress-driven router on top. MathedUp sits awkwardly between: it has neither a strong board axis (Spine A) nor a guided next-step (Spine B) — yet it already owns the raw materials for both (board prefs; RAG + quiz data).

Shared conventions worth copying

1. Board is early and persistent — set once, everything configures (Atom takes this furthest: pick your target school → format, content and mocks all set).
2. Tier (Higher/Foundation) is a toggle, not a separate site.
3. Predictable per-topic resource bundles reduce cognitive load. (MathedUp's single-card bundle is ahead here.)
4. Goal-targeting: grade ladders, grade boundaries, predicted papers (Maths Genie, MME) tie revision to the exam outcome.
5. Progress-driven routing tells the student what to do next.
6. Habit loops: daily practice (Corbett 5-a-day; Sparx weekly).
7. Tight revise→test pairing within a topic (BBC, Corbett's video↔worksheet, Khan's lesson→practice).

4. Per-site IA profiles (condensed)

5. MathedUp — current-state IA audit

Architecture: WordPress (Astra) root + standalone HTML apps (games, quizzes, papers, dashboards) in subdirectories; one shared auto-synced top nav.

Primary navigation (dropdowns):

• GCSE ▾ → GCSE Higher · GCSE Foundation · Exam Papers · L2 Further Maths · GCSE Maths Legacy
• A-Level ▾ → A-Level Maths · A-Level Further Maths
• L3 Algebra ▾ → L3 Algebra · Exam Papers
• 11+ ▾ → NVR · VR · Maths · Exam Day · Daily Challenge · Leaderboard
• Games ▾ · Events · About

Entry model: course-first → a "takeaway" page per course (a long grid of topic cards, grouped into sticky-tabbed sections) → each card carries a RAG self-rating dot + resource pills (Worksheet · Exam questions · Quiz · Video · Game). This is MathedUp's core IA.

Per-topic resources (the card's strength): interactive worksheet (now with ↻ new-questions + 4 print modes), exam-question generator (board-aware), 15-Q quiz, a game where one exists, video. All reachable from one card — unusually good.

Progress layer: RAG self-rating per topic (saved to topic_progress); "focus next" chips deep-link red topics; My Progress dashboard (per-course RAG bars, badges, game scores); quiz ">28-day, still got it?" nudge; Daily Challenge + streak (11+ only). Accounts capture course + exam-board preferences (used by My Progress; not yet wired into navigation defaults — explicitly a "Phase 2" item).

Distinctive strengths vs the field:

• ✅ Single per-topic resource hub (beats Save My Exams / PMT's resource-type splits).
• ✅ Games / gamified practice — almost no competitor has this.
• ✅ Infinite procedurally-generated questions (worksheets/quizzes/exam) — Sparx/Atom charge for "new questions each time"; MathedUp does it free.
• ✅ RAG self-evaluation as a lightweight progress spine + "focus next".
• ✅ GCSE + A-Level + 11+ under one roof with shared progress.

6. Gap analysis — MathedUp vs the field

7. Prioritised recommendations (detailed)

R1 — Make exam board a first-class, persistent navigation axis ★★★★★

Why: it's the dominant mental model across the entire competitive set, and MathedUp is the outlier. It's mostly wiring, not building — the board preference is already captured at onboarding (profiles.exam_boards).

Do:

• On every takeaway page, add a board selector at the top (like the new exam-papers board filter), defaulting to the signed-in student's saved board. Where content is board-agnostic, the selector still drives the exam-question generator's default board and the papers default — so the whole topic experience respects the board.
• Pre-select the board on the exam-question pages and the exam-papers pages from the saved pref (the "Phase 2: wire saved board into exam/worksheet default filters" item already on the roadmap).
• Add a one-time board chooser on entry (and a persistent "AQA ▾" pill in the header) for signed-out users, stored locally.
• Where you genuinely have board-distinct content (you already drop a board's pill when it doesn't assess a type), surface that as "AQA doesn't assess this" rather than hiding it silently.

Payoff: every student feels the site is "their board's site" — the #1 reason students pick PMT/SME over a generic site.

R2 — One GCSE entry with a Higher/Foundation toggle; retire the legacy takeaway ★★★★☆

Why: the field treats tier as a toggle, not a separate destination; MathedUp has two pages plus a lingering legacy takeaway (a known UX-debt item).

Do: present a single GCSE Maths destination with a Higher / Foundation toggle (the topic-set split already exists in gcse_{higher,foundation}_topics.json; crossover topics show in both). 301-retire gcse-maths-takeaway (legacy). The student's tier can come from their account (year group / self-select).

Payoff: one clear GCSE front door; removes the most confusing branch in the nav.

R3 — A guided "Start here" entry + active "what next" router ★★★★☆

Why: this is Spine B — the thing Khan/Seneca/Atom/Sparx all do and MathedUp is 70% toward (RAG + quiz data + "focus next" chips, but passive).

Do:

• A lightweight "Where should I start?" flow: 5–10 quick diagnostic questions across a course (reuse the quiz engine) → produces a prioritised focus list (weakest topics first), shown as the entry screen.
• Promote "focus next" from a chip buried on a topic to a persistent module on My Progress and the homepage: "Revise these 3 next."
• Frame it as support, not policing (consistent with your "revision, not homework" VISION line).

Payoff: turns a long topic list into a guided path — the single biggest pedagogical-UX lever.

R4 — Homepage as a router ★★★★☆

Do: replace the static hero with a course + board picker ("I'm revising GCSE for AQA → Start") that drops the user straight into the right (board-defaulted) takeaway; for signed-in users show "Continue where you left off" + the focus-next module + a streak. Keep the marketing copy below the fold.

Payoff: the homepage starts doing navigation work instead of being a poster.

R5 — Difficulty / target-grade lens on takeaway ★★★☆☆

Why: Maths Genie's grade ladder is a beloved, exam-targeted way to navigate; MME's predicted papers do the same.

Do: tag topics (and/or quiz bands) with a target-grade band and let the takeaway filter by it ("show me grade 4–5 topics"). Pair with grade-boundary context on the exam-papers pages (you already host the papers). Consider a "predicted paper" framing for a generated mixed exam.

Payoff: students chasing a grade can navigate by their goal, not just by topic name.

R6 — Standardise the topic card + add a guided rhythm ★★★☆☆

Do: make every card expose the same ordered rhythm — Watch → Practise (worksheet) → Test (quiz) → Rate (RAG) — with a subtle "next step" affordance, plus "next topic / related topic" links so a session flows. Keep the single-card hub (your advantage); just sequence it.

Payoff: converts the bundle from "a pile of links" into "a guided mini-lesson" (BBC/Khan rhythm) while keeping your one-page strength.

R7 — Search + filters on takeaway pages ★★★☆☆

Do: add a search box + filters (section · target grade · board relevance · RAG state e.g. "show my reds") to the takeaway grid. It's already a filterable card grid with sticky tabs — this is an extension.

Payoff: discovery beyond scrolling; "jump to Pythagoras" / "show my weak topics" in two clicks.

R8 — Spaced-repetition "revisit" queue ★★★☆☆

Why: Seneca's forgetting-curve "what to revisit" is the strongest progress-driven idea in the field; you already have a primitive (the >28-day quiz nudge).

Do: compute a revisit queue from topic_progress + quiz recency/score (older + weaker = higher priority) and surface it on My Progress / homepage as "Time to revisit: …".

Payoff: brings students back and tells them exactly what to redo — retention + return visits.

R9 — Rationalise the top-nav hierarchy ★★☆☆☆

Do: make the spine consistently qualification-first: GCSE · A-Level · Further Maths · 11+ · Games · About. Fold L3 Algebra under a sensible parent (it's an A-Level-adjacent qualification, currently an orphan top-level dropdown). Each qualification's dropdown then holds Revise (takeaway) · Exam Papers · (Quizzes/Games). Trivial now that the nav is a single auto-synced source.

Payoff: a cleaner, more predictable spine; less "why is L3 Algebra a top-level thing?".

R10 — A GCSE daily habit loop ★★★☆☆

Do: extend the 11+ Daily Challenge + streak engine to GCSE (a "GCSE 5-a-day" of mixed generated questions at the student's tier/board). The engine, streak and leaderboard already exist.

Payoff: a daily return reason for the GCSE audience (Corbett's 5-a-day is one of its stickiest features).

8. Proposed MathedUp IA / sitemap

HOME  = router: [course] + [board] → Start  ·  (signed-in) Continue · Focus next · Streak
│
├─ GCSE Maths            (one destination; Higher/Foundation TOGGLE; board-defaulted)
│   ├─ Revise (takeaway)  — topic cards (Watch→Practise→Test→Rate); search + filters (grade/board/RAG)
│   ├─ Exam Papers        — board-defaulted filter (already built)
│   ├─ Daily 5-a-day      — (new) habit loop
│   └─ [per topic] one card: video · worksheet · exam Qs · quiz · game · RAG
├─ A-Level Maths          (Pure/Stats/Mechanics modules; board axis)
├─ Further Maths          (incl. L2 Further Maths; L3 Algebra lives here, not top-level)
├─ 11+                    (NVR · VR · Maths · Exam Day · Daily · Leaderboard; + target-exam framing)
├─ Games
└─ About / Events
   │
   PERSISTENT: header board pill (AQA ▾) · sign-in pill · "Start here" diagnostic
   MY PROGRESS: RAG bars · Focus next · Revisit queue (spaced repetition) · badges · scores

Guiding principles for the rebuild:

• Board + tier are axes, not pages — set once (account), changeable via a header pill, defaulted everywhere.
• The topic card stays the atomic unit (your advantage) — but sequenced and cross-linked.
• Progress data routes the student (focus next + revisit queue) — support, not surveillance.
• One qualification-first spine, board/tier underneath.

9. Quick wins vs bigger bets

Quick wins (days): R9 (nav tidy), R2 (GCSE toggle + retire legacy), R1-lite (default the exam-question + papers board from the saved pref), R7 (takeaway search/filter), promote "focus next" to a homepage/My-Progress module (part of R3/R4).

Bigger bets (projects): R1-full (board axis across all takeaways), R3 (diagnostic "start here"), R5 (grade lens + predicted papers), R8 (spaced-repetition queue), R10 (GCSE daily), R6 (guided card rhythm).

If you do only three things: R1 (board axis — finish the wiring), R3 (guided "what next"), R4 (homepage router). They convert MathedUp from a well-stocked library you browse into a board-aware path that tells you what to revise — which is exactly where Khan/Seneca/Atom win, while keeping the two things MathedUp already does better than everyone (the single-card topic hub and gamified, infinitely-generated practice).

_Sources: see research/_notes.md (per-site findings) — Maths Genie, PMT, Corbettmaths, Dr Frost, Save My Exams, Revisely, BBC Bitesize, MME, Khan Academy, Atom Learning, Sparx Maths, Seneca Learning, Bond/CGP (11+ landscape)._