Purpose
Our purpose is to give learners, whose education has been disrupted, the numeracy foundations they need to succeed at GCSE Maths and move forward.
Helping learners with unconventional journeys achieve the highest GCSE Maths grade they can.
We work with local authorities and FE colleges. Starting in the North before rolling out nationally.
Vision
Our vision is a world where a disrupted education doesn’t limit what a learner can achieve in maths, or where it takes them next.
Mission
Our mission is to have — by the end of 2027 — 5,000 learners on track for a grade 4 or above in GCSE Maths.
Knowledge and potential aren’t the same thing.
At STEMeUp, we believe grades are not a good representation of anyone’s potential. A disrupted education creates learning gaps that can feel impossible to close. This has nothing to do with talent or ability.
For most learners, their educational journey is linear with no major disruptions. For those learners, knowledge and potential overlap so closely that one is a fair proxy for the other. For learners with unconventional journeys, disruption has weakened that link. The knowledge you can measure isn’t the potential you’d see if the gaps were filled. So, our first job is to find those gaps — precisely, learner by learner — and start to fill them.
Why now?
UK NEET numbers (16–24-year-olds not in education, employment or training) have just passed one million — the highest level in over a decade.1 Strong numeracy is one of the clearest protective factors we have against that trajectory.2
Young people in stable work, or studying at Level 4 or higher at age 20
| GCSE results | Care-experienced learners | Their peers |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than 5 GCSE passes | 8.2% | 31.4% |
| 5+ passes, but missing English or maths | 31.9% | 56.1% |
| 5+ passes, with English and maths | 57.9% | 81.7% |
“Knowledge gaps in Maths are real challenges for learners with unconventional journeys. We can’t undo the disruptions that interrupted learning in the first place, but knowledge gaps are not permanent. They can be located, sequenced, and filled; that’s why STEMeUp exists.”
Our products
The three things that make it work.
The gap-mapping engine
A knowledge-gap mapping engine.
A precise map of what each learner knows, across the smallest building blocks of GCSE Maths. It finds the gaps holding them back, and the ones they are ready to learn next.
STEMeUp AI Tutor
A deliberately constrained AI maths tutor.
It uses scaffolding and tailored support: teaching a concept, asking the learner to teach it back, or offering an easy win when the right move is to rebuild confidence before pushing on.
The progress hub
One view of progress for everyone around the learner.
Up-to-date engagement, progress, and gap data for every learner — written in language that drops straight into PEP meetings, department reviews and Ofsted evidence, in three clicks.
For local authorities
When a child moves home, their maths shouldn’t have to start again.
STEMeUp finds the gaps that disruption has left in each child’s GCSE Maths and teaches from the earliest one. Their progress stays with them, and their PEP report is ready when you need it.
For FE collegesA grade 3 doesn’t tell you what to teach.
STEMeUp shows the earlier gaps behind each resit student’s grade. Your teachers see what to teach first, class by class, for the November and May sittings.
Interested in piloting with us?
We’re selecting a small group of local authorities and FE colleges to work with. Get in touch to find out more.
Get in touchReferences
- Department for Work and Pensions (2026). Young people and work: interim report. Independent report. gov.uk
- Harrison, N. & Dixon, J. (2023). Care Leavers’ Transition into the Labour Market in England. University of Oxford, funded by the Nuffield Foundation. nuffieldfoundation.org
Why now? chart: Harrison & Dixon (2023), Tables 4.3–4.5, outcomes at age 20. The chart adds together two of the report’s seven outcome groups, stable work and study at Level 4 or higher; the groups do not overlap. “Care-experienced learners” are the report’s care leavers: young people in care for at least 13 weeks around their 16th birthday. “Their peers” is the report’s general population: young people of the same age who were not in care after the age of 8 and did not have a social worker.