Building the Worlds Best Maths Class

Hi there, I’m TJ.

I’m the founder of Breakthrough Maths. We make Maths easier to learn for students. We teach over 3,000 students a week online.

It’s ironic – I really struggled with Maths. It did not come easy to me. I used to dread going into Maths class.

After my Leaving Cert, I started to teach Maths grinds. To help students like me who struggled. I focussed on bringing energy and fun to the lessons, and to build the child’s confidence over time. And it worked.

13 years later I now run Breakthrough Maths. We have over 16 staff, all passionate about Maths. We teach students from primary school right through to the Leaving Cert. Every lesson is built on building a child’s confidence up with a live energetic tutor, backed by the data of our own testing platform.

My goal is to build something to help as many students as possible.

Connect with me:

My Journey

How I Started

I started this business in September 2020. I was working for 4 years in Kerry group at the time, and I was very frustrated with corporate life. I set up the business in my local hall in Whitechurch, Co Cork. We had 8 students in our first week.

My Philosophy

If you can fix Maths, the rest will follow.

I’ve always believed that.

That’s why I only taught maths. If we got that right, suddenly I’d see the child’s other grades improving. It’s a bit like a rising tide lifting all boats.

The Idea

So now I had to solve the problem of finding a more effective way of teaching Maths at scale. The key to that is testing and data. If we could turn our classes into part live teaching, part students testing themselves, we would have a more engaging, more focussed class. So we built our own platform to do that.

My Dream

I want to scale the business to 20,000 students per week.

The reality is that Maths is a global problem for many students. And Maths is Maths — it’s the same thing across the globe and it’s binary. Why can’t we do a better job than the Khan Academy?

My First Student

My story began by teaching students locally in my village. One student, in particular, inspired me to look at Maths in a new light.

Fionn McCarthy has autism. He wasn’t meant to go to mainstream school. I started working with him in 1st year in secondary school. We never looked back.

Roll the clock forward 6 years and Fionn ended up receiving 480 points in his Leaving Cert. It was the kick I needed to set up Breakthrough Maths.

Read Article

Featured on

Ireland AM

We appeared on Ireland AM to talk about all things about Maths. I also did a Maths quiz that caught some headlines!

Watch Interview

2 Johnny’s Podcast

I joined the Tipp lads to discuss our viral growth on Tik Tok and the power of Maths. It was a serious laugh!

Listen to Podcast

Pat Kenny Interview

I joined Pat to discuss Maths anxiety in girls. It was a great interview, 10 mins long.

Pat Kenny Show Clip

Education

Set Breakthrough Maths up in 2020. It’s my full focus and we now have a team of nearly 20 staff.

Agriculture

I am from a farming background. I studied Dairy Business in UCD, graduating with a 1st class honors degree in 2017. I like to help on the home farm in my spare time.