LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 12, 2026--
Lovevery, the early childhood brand known for transforming the way families play and learn, today announced the launch of The Maths Skill Set, a hands-on, screen-free program designed to help children build a better foundation in maths, now available in the UK and Europe. The new offering follows The Reading Skill Set as Lovevery’s second academic program proven to improve test scores and increase motivation through play.
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According to the Department for Education's national curriculum assessments, approximately 1 in 4 children in England enters secondary school below the expected proficiency in maths—a gap that research suggests begins forming well before children begin school.
“Parents know maths matters, but it can be a struggle to support it at home. As children advance in school, maths gets progressively more difficult. The teaching accelerates, concepts start stacking, and if a child doesn't have a solid maths foundation, they often can’t keep up,” said Jessica Rolph, Lovevery Cofounder and CEO. “Grounded in research across developmental psychology, cognitive science, and maths education, The Maths Skill Set is designed to build the foundation children need to feel confident and successfully navigate maths concepts as they advance. A strong maths foundation isn’t going to come from worksheets or an app on a screen. It happens by making hands-on learning fun, so children want to keep coming back to it. That’s exactly what sets this program apart.”
The Results
The Maths Skill Set is proven to improve maths scores and build confidence in both children and parents. 1 In a six-week, at-home study, 93% of children improved their maths scores with just 20 minutes of play per day. Parents reported equally strong outcomes: 100% reported that their child was more enthusiastic and motivated about maths after using the program, and 96% felt more prepared to support their child's maths learning at home.
How it Works
The Maths Skill Set is built on three core principles:
Each part includes 7-9 skill-based games, activities, and storybooks, along with a parent Play Guide, and free access to expert maths content through The Lovevery App. Parents gain background knowledge, play tips, and confidence to guide each activity–no teaching expertise required.
Growing With Families
Since 2017, Lovevery has served more than 1 million families as a leader in early childhood development. In 2025, the brand surpassed $1 billion in lifetime sales and tripled its retail door count, bringing Lovevery's research-backed products to more households than ever before.
"Lovevery has continued to grow alongside families with programs and resources that make parenting easier and learning genuinely fun. The Maths Skill Set is no exception," said Roderick Morris, Lovevery Cofounder and President. "Parents trust Lovevery as a resource throughout the most important stages of their child's development. Our proven framework for play-based learning has allowed us to continue expanding across a broader age range and to support families throughout the first eight years of childhood.”
The Maths Skill Set is available now at lovevery.co.uk and lovevery.eu.
1 In a six-week study of Part 1 of The Maths Skill Set with 28 American families, as measured by the Preschool Early Numeracy Screener (PENS) and a study-specific Maths Skill Set assessment.
ABOUT LOVEVERY
Lovevery is redefining early childhood development through its trusted, research-driven support for families. The company’s award-winning, stage-based Play Kits program including the companion Lovevery App has served more than 1 million families worldwide, transforming the way children learn and play. Founded in 2015 by Jessica Rolph and Roderick Morris, the company has spent over a decade simplifying the science of child development into resources and products proven to help children grow and thrive. Today, Lovevery continues to lead in early childhood innovation across more than 30 global markets. Learn more at lovevery.com.
The Maths Skill Set begins by introducing counting and early addition and subtraction, before expanding to concepts of place value, money management, and early multiplication and division. A Play Guide and free access to expert content through The Lovevery App, provides parents with background knowledge, play tips, and confidence to guide each activity–no teaching expertise required.
The Maths Skill Set from Lovevery builds a strong math foundation for children through hands-on play and real-life maths skills. Proven to improve maths scores and build confidence in both children and parents. Available now at lovevery.co.uk and lovevery.eu.
ROME (AP) — The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem.
“We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin's school of English, told The Associated Press.
What's more, she said, the poem was within the main body of Latin text: "It was extraordinary.”
Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, "Caedmon’s Hymn" appears within some copies of the “Ecclesiastical History of the English People,” written in Latin by a monk and saint known as the Venerable Bede. His history is one of the most widely reproduced texts from the Middle Ages, with almost 200 manuscripts, according to Magnanti's colleague Mark Faulkner, an associate professor of medieval literature at Trinity.
He considers Caedmon’s poem to be the start of English literature.
The manuscript he and Magnanti found is one of the oldest, dating from the 9th century. Two earlier copies contain the poem in Old English, but as afterthoughts — translated from Latin and scrawled into the margin by later scribes or appended but not within the text's main body, according to the researchers.
The discovery sheds light on the English language's wide diffusion, long before what was previously understood, Faulkner said in Rome, where the duo had traveled to view the text in person for the first time.
“Prior to the discovery of the Rome manuscript, the earliest one was from the early 12th century. So this is three centuries earlier than that. And so it attests to the importance that was already being attached to the English in the early 9th century,” Faulkner said.
And it's something of a miracle they uncovered it at all.
Caedmon is said to have composed the poem while working at Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire, after guests at a feast began reciting poems, Faulkner said.
“Embarrassed that he didn’t know anything suitable, Caedmon left the feast and went to bed," he said. "A figure then appeared to him in his dreams telling him to sing about creation, which Caedmon miraculously did, producing the nine-line hymn."
Some 1,400 years later, this copy of his poem resurfaced in Rome’s main public library — but not before crossing the Atlantic Ocean at least twice and changing hands even more times.
Monks transcribed this copy of Bede's history in the scriptorium of the Benedictine abbey of Nonantola, one of the most important transcription centers during the Middle Ages, located near modern-day Modena in northern Italy, according to Valentina Longo, curator of medieval and modern manuscripts at Rome's National Central Library.
In the 17th century, as the abbey's importance declined, its vast collection of manuscripts was shifted to another abbey in Rome, then moved to the Vatican and finally on to a small church.
Along the way, some of the texts went missing, only to emerge in the early 19th century in the possession of famous international collectors, Longo said.
This copy of Bede's history went to renowned English antiquarian Thomas Phillipps. He fell on hard times, selling off bits and pieces of his collection, and Swiss bibliophile Martin Bodmer secured the book. From there, somehow, it arrived in New York City, in the trove of Austrian-born rare bookseller H.P. Kraus during the 20th century.
Italy's culture ministry was scouring the world for the Nonantola abbey's missing manuscripts, snapping them up in auctions and from collectors around the world. It bought the copy of Bede's history from Kraus in 1972, Longo said, and since then the illustrious text has remained in Rome's library — but received scant notice.
Enter Magnanti, who had spent over four years studying Bede’s history and was compiling a catalog of extant copies.
“I knew that the book was listed in the library’s catalog, so I was almost certain that the book was, in fact, still here," she said. “I realized that, because of the very complex history of this book, no big scholar had really looked at it. So it had been virtually unstudied."
She emailed the library, which confirmed the book was in its stacks. Three months later, she received digital images of the entire manuscript.
The library has digitized the entire Nonantolan collection and it is freely accessible through the website, Longo said.
It's part of a massive project by the library to make thousands of rare books and manuscripts available to researchers around the world, according to Andrea Cappa, the library's head of manuscripts and the rare books reading room.
“The discovery made by the experts of Trinity College is just one starting point, a single manuscript that might pave the way for countless other discoveries, in countless other fields, through international cooperation like this,” Cappa said.
The 8th-century manuscript copy of the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, containing a rare, long-lost copy of Caedmon's Hymn — the first poem ever written down in Old English — is seen at Rome's National Library, Thursday, May 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrea Rosa)
A rare, long-lost copy of Caedmon's Hymn — the first poem ever written down in Old English — is visible in the five lines above the final line of a page from an 8th-century manuscript copy of the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, at Rome's National Library, Thursday, May 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrea Rosa)
From left, Elisabetta Magnanti, Mark Faulkner of Dublin's Trinity College, Andrea Cappa and Valentina Longo of Rome's National Central Library examine a manuscript containing a rare, long-lost copy of Caedmon's Hymn — the first poem ever written down in Old English — at Rome's National Library, Thursday, May 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrea Rosa)
From left, Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner from Dublin's Trinity College and Valentina Longo of Rome's National Central Library look at a manuscript containing a rare, long-lost copy of Caedmon's Hymn, the first poem ever to be written down in Old English, at Rome's National Library, Thursday, May 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrea Rosa)
A rare, long-lost copy of Caedmon's Hymn — the first poem ever written down in Old English — is visible in the five lines above the final line of the left page from an 8th-century manuscript copy of the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, at Rome's National Library, Thursday, May 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrea Rosa)null
