Choosing a maths learning platform for primary school: the criteria
How teachers and school leaders can assess a maths learning platform for primary school: content, diagnostics, data protection, costs and effort.
In brief: A good maths learning platform for primary school covers all five content areas of the education standards, responds to the children’s mistakes, shows the teacher where the class stands and has data protection properly arranged. Price and ease of use come after that. Mazio Math is a learning platform designed entirely for primary maths lessons and can be checked against each of these criteria, free of charge for teachers.
This article is for teachers and school leaders who are choosing a digital maths platform for their primary school. You will find a list of criteria that applies to any product, followed by an assessment of Mazio Math on each point. We are the provider of Mazio Math ourselves. As of November 2026.
Seven criteria for your choice
A programme can be popular with children and still reveal little about how they think. So check the subject side first, then everyday use. The KMK education standards for mathematics in primary school, Germany’s national standards with their five content areas, offer good orientation. The PIKAS digi project also gives an overview of quality criteria for using software in primary maths lessons.
| Criterion | How to recognise it |
|---|---|
| Content | All five content areas, including geometry, quantities and measuring, patterns, and data, as well as arithmetic. Suitable grades. |
| Handling mistakes | The programme responds to the specific wrong answer and offers help without giving away the solution. |
| Diagnostics | The teacher learns where the class stands and which errors in thinking come up frequently, without an extra test. |
| Teaching the class | The teacher can put out content for everyone, and the children still work at their own level. |
| Data protection | Data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR, data location, deletion periods, no advertising. |
| Costs | A clear price per class or per child, and a funding route that fits your country and school authority. |
| Effort | Logging the children in, devices, familiarisation for the staff. |
Three questions help with weighting. First: what is the programme for, practice phases, support with individual topics or diagnostics? Second: who has to work with the programme, a single teacher or the whole staff? Third: how much time does the set-up take before the first lesson can run?
How Mazio Math meets the criteria
Content. The content of Mazio Math is organised by the five content areas of the education standards and designed for the two-year bands of grades 1/2 and 3/4. The children work in three areas. Units build up a topic over several stations, from first discovery to confident mastery. The Basiscamp practises arithmetic skills, from number sense and place value to written methods. The Knobelbox develops problem solving. There are units for grade 1 too.
Handling mistakes. When a child makes a mistake, the learning assistant Mazio helps directly within the task. He responds to the answer given, names typical errors in thinking in simple words and asks a follow-up question. In the units, Mazio also shows the help in the picture. He marks the decisive spot, highlights part of the representation, hides a wrong answer option or fills in a simple partial step, so that the child solves the rest on their own. He does not give the solution. The child takes the next step on their own.
Diagnostics. While the children practise, Mazio Math evaluates every answer using rules and shows under “Results” where the class stands in the five content areas. Once a week, Mazio Math checks whether a misconception is showing up in the class. The support card then suggests steps for teaching and suitable content for the class board.
Teaching the class. The teacher uses the plus button to place a unit on the class board, and the children see it on their devices straight away. The difficulty adapts to each child’s previous work, even when the whole class is working on the same unit. That way everyone works on the same topic, each child at their own level.
Data protection. Each child logs in with their own eight-character access code or their access card. The children’s names and email addresses are not needed. Mazio Math stores and processes the children’s personal data exclusively in Germany. The school concludes the data protection agreement online, and all the documents for it are in the data protection checklist for schools (in German).
Costs. Mazio Math is free for teachers. For use with the children, the school obtains a licence, either for a class or for the whole school; schools request a quote for this. Agreeing to the data protection agreement costs nothing.
Effort. Mazio Math runs in the browser on common tablets and laptops, and there is also an app for iOS and Android. A class is set up with “New class”; a code is created automatically for each child, and “Print cards” produces an A4 sheet of access cards.
An example from the classroom. A school’s staff are testing two products in a grade 3 class. The teacher places the unit “Parallel and perpendicular” on the class board and switches on “Compulsory”. The row shows how many children have finished the content. After two weeks the teacher opens “Results” and brings the evaluation by level and the class’s standing in the content areas to the staff meeting. This lets the staff compare what each product tells them about the class.
What Mazio Math is designed for. Mazio Math is designed entirely for primary maths lessons and can be used alongside a tool for other subjects. You will find a comparison in the article Mazio Math and other maths apps with a teacher overview (in German).
Next step. Create an account under register for free, set up a class and look at the units on the shelf. Using it with a class is currently available to schools in Germany. If your school is in another country, registration records your interest and we will let you know as soon as Mazio Math is available there. The page Mazio Math for teachers gives an overview for teachers.
Frequently asked questions
Which maths learning platform is good for primary school?
That depends on the goal. For straightforward revision, free practice apps are often enough. If misconceptions are to be identified and taken up in lessons, look for feedback on mistakes, an evaluation for the class and all five content areas. Test two products with the same class and compare what you know afterwards.
What should school leaders look for in terms of data protection?
A data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR, a clearly named data location, deletion periods and no advertising or tracking. At Mazio Math this agreement is called the data protection agreement, and the school leadership concludes it online.
Is one platform enough for all subjects?
A platform for many subjects makes administration simpler. A dedicated maths product goes into more depth on errors in thinking in this subject. Many schools combine both.