How to Grow Your Online School: Adding a New Subject (Maths)

With multiple physical location hubs across major cities and a thriving online ecosystem, growth isn't a challenge for this English language school network. They are established. Their model works. Their brand is strong. Their students engage.

Then they spotted a gap in the market: math lessons. But they didn't want just any curriculum – it had to be exceptional. It had to be aligned to Cambridge standards.

Introducing an entirely new subject, anchored to one of the world's most prestigious academic frameworks, represented a significant leap. Not just commercially, but operationally, too. They were faced with multiple challenges:

• Staffing up with a content development team with the capacity and ability to map and design lesson material that meets strict standards.
• Building a recruitment pipeline of experienced math educators who could teach complex content in English.
• Limited internal capacity to manage and develop the teachers once the subject launches.
• The capital costs required to put all of this in place, delaying the profitability of the project.
• Having the appetite to spend months assembling and executing the project while an entirely new revenue stream was waiting.

These conditions weren't favorable. So they looked for a partner who could not only create and integrate a new, world-class framework into their existing infrastructure, but who could take complete ownership of the teacher management and development once live as well. 

Launching a new subject can easily be underestimated. There's a lot more to consider than just creating content - it's compliance, sequencing, the teacher profile that will be required. How consistency will be delivered on day 1 and on day 100 as the project scales. Not to mention the time, cost and expertise required to get launch ready. Partnering with the right provider ticks all of these boxes.

— Rob Schulenburg, Chief Operations Officer at The Really Great Teacher Company

That meant having a firm understanding of their pedagogical approach when mapping lessons against Cambridge-level standards, while engineering a curriculum that fit into their fixed class calendar without compromise. It also entailed building an online teacher pipeline calibrated specifically to the dual-expertise profile the program required, as well as fully handling operations from day one. 

But the real win? The only outright cost would be development of the lesson material. Thereafter they would only pay a set rate for every lesson taught. 

That's when they approached The Really Great Teacher Company – we could provide the academic blueprint and human engine to run it, with a much more affordable pathway.

Launching this project posed distinct challenges, that had to be solved at the same time.

1. Designing a Cambridge-Aligned Maths Curriculum

Every unit, assessment, and learning outcome must meet strict international academic standards — while remaining accessible to young learners whose first language is not English.

But academic compliance was only one part. The curriculum also had to be built around the school's own educational philosophy and structured to fit within their fixed number of classes per year.

That meant every unit had to be precisely sequenced and paced to a set schedule — not generally adapted, but purpose-engineered — without sacrificing academic rigour.

It couldn't be handed to a generalist team or completed hastily without expert instructional design.

2. Recruiting Online Math Teachers — Globally

Finding educators qualified to teach mathematics fluently in English according to a specific pedagogy is not a standard recruitment brief. It is a rare combination of academic qualification, language proficiency, and teaching approach — in a competitive global market where these candidates have many other options.

Sourcing and screening a high calibre educator required unique hiring expertise.

3. Online Teacher Management and Development

Launching the program is only the beginning. Once live, we step into the next role – managing both the teachers and the actual lesson delivery.

We handle the scheduling, lesson quality, performance management, payroll, and ongoing personal wellbeing and skills development.

This is the part that compounds in value over time. They simply pay per lesson while staying entirely focused on student acquisition, and we manage everything else.

Rather than wait for the course material to be completed before starting to recruit, we executed both work streams at the same time — compressing the timeline to launch without compromising quality on either side.

1. Curriculum Design

We developed the entire required math curriculum from scratch – building a framework calibrated to the school's student demographics, hybrid delivery platform, and learners' English proficiency levels.

• Every unit was sequenced to fit within their existing class calendar.
• Modules were paced accurately so content could be delivered without rushing or gaps forming.
• It was structured to be in line with Cambridge assessment standards throughout.

This wasn't off-the-shelf content or loose adaptations. It was purpose-built curriculum, engineered to meet prestigious criteria and fit seamlessly into the school's operations.

As the program grew, we extended the scope to include tailored assessments — providing the tools to:

• Track progress
• Identify any learning gaps
• Demonstrate measurable outcomes to students and parents.

We also put a continuous feedback and adaptation loop in place — refining both the content delivered through the platform and the material provided directly to teachers.

This means the curriculum will never became static. It keeps pace with how classes actually perform in practice, challenging and inspiring students rather than settling into a fixed state. Flexing to meet the needs of diverse learners within the same class rather than teaching to a single average student.

A curriculum is not a document, it's a delivery system. It should be built around how your students actually learn. What works on paper might have to evolve when you can see how students are actually responding. To get the best outcomes, treat your curriculum as a living thing — not a deliverable that gets filed away after launch."

— Chris Miller, Director of Learning and Development at The Really Great Teacher Company

Key Results:

• Number of modules mapped: 1,224 for delivery over 3 semesters.

• Year groups or levels covered: Stages 1 through 12

     Cambridge Primary, stages 1-6

     Cambridge Lower secondary stages 7-9

     Cambridge Upper Secondary (IGCSE)

     Cambridge Advanced Stage

• Time from brief to launch-ready: 7 weeks

2. Online Math Teacher Recruitment

At the same time, we started building a targeted global talent pipeline, vetting certified math educators against this project's specific profile.

Every teacher that was successfully placed was fully onboarded and trained on the school's platform and teaching approach in advance – ready to teach from day one.

No ramp-up period. No knowledge gaps to work around.

Key Insights:

• Total teachers recruited: The project has started conservatively, with growth expected as it scales.
• Time-to-first hire: 14 days, from start of recruitment to teaching their first classes.
• Candidate sources: We identified a pool of qualified math teachers in South Africa, making it one of the top countries we targeted. We also had internal teachers with this skill that we could place on the platform. External recruitment followed to ensure we have enough pipeline to be ready to scale at short notice.

A recruitment pipeline isn't about gathering a stack of CVs. It's about knowing which markets produce the right profile, how to reach candidates who aren't actively looking, how to assess them accurately and quickly, and how to make your opportunity compelling enough that they choose you over the alternatives. That knowledge is what we offer."

— James Thomson, Chief Executive Officer at The Really Great Teacher Company

With the content mapped out, the school needed a way to assess each student's mathematic ability in order to place them in the correct class. 

We developed an assessment tool that was used to evaluate every student, with the results accurately determining how they should be grouped.

A new, premium course offering — live within weeks and entirely managed — without a single internal hire to achieve it. 

✓ A new revenue stream activated without increasing overheads or pulling the existing team away from core commercial responsibilities.

✓ A scalable delivery model where operational costs and teacher staffing grow in direct proportion to student demand — no overcommitting, no scrambling.

✓ A curriculum that evolves — continuously refined through real teacher feedback and classroom performance, so students are always being challenged at the right level rather than taught to a static syllabus.

✓ Elevated brand authority through association with Cambridge standards and the quality assurance that comes with it.

✓ Complete peace of mind in the content, teachers, scheduling, delivery, and quality managed end-to-end by a partner fully accountability for outcomes.

If you are considering expansion, whether in a new learning area, specialist curriculum or even a new region, the barrier is rarely ambition. It is almost always operational capacity.

Building an internal team to facilitate new products or projects, and managing delivery thereof, takes time and resource that most education businesses don't have sitting idle. And in a competitive market, any delays are costly.

This project proved that with the right partner, you don't have to choose between moving fast and getting it right.

If you're looking to expand your course offering without increasing your overheads, we'd love to hear from you.

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