About Us
GEMS Education
The Creelman mission is to make some teacher developed resources available, at a nominal cost, to other younger and less experienced teachers, parents, tutor
agencies and students.
We are actively looking for experienced, explicit teachers, who have a GEMS framework, who want to contribute their resources in other subjects.
Andrew Creelman - His Journey
For over 50 years Mr Creelman has taught in government, private schools, faith based schools, to Australian submariners and Homeschoolers. He can see the providential hand of God in leading him to different teachers in different schools, and has learned something valuable from each person and experience.
Explicit Teaching style
Fast Facts
In 1985, Mr Creelman became the Foundation Principal of what is now South Coast Baptist College and in teaching a grouped class of Year 3 to 7 students, he used a system of flashcards to help students learn basic number facts.
Mr Creelman noticed that many students entering High School did not know their basic number facts, including the Times Tables. He realised that without a good foundation of basic number facts, it would be very difficult for students to make satisfactory progress in secondary Mathematics. So he developed the Fast Facts method of learning those basic number facts. Fast Facts consists of a box of 40 sets of flashcards, together with a resource booklet for teachers to supervise the learning of these time tables
Later Mr Creelman was invited to be the Mathematician in residence at Wesley College, Junior school. Here he mentored Year 3 and 4 teachers in the use of Fast Facts with pleasing results. The 2026 WA Maths syllabus makes the teaching and learning of the Times Tables, the responsibility of Year 3 and 4 teachers and students.
Hanrahan books
In 1972, at Kent St SHS, Mr Creelman first met Mr Paul Hanrahan, who was, for many years, the widely respected Senior Master of Mathematics at Kent St SHS. Mr Hanrahan produced his own resources for his students, and these resources became popular throughout the state. The Hanrahan upper school Maths books contained exercises with many years of old Year 12 exam questions.
The Hanrahan books had been the standard textbook for about two decades. During that time, the cohort of student ability increased to include many less able students. While at Hampton SHS, in 1988, during a period of intensive tutoring in the late 1980s, Mr Creelman developed many worksheets to supplement the Hanrahan books.
Mr Creelman then met the Hanrahan family and gained permission to revise the Hanrahan upper school Maths books. The Hanrahan books were modified to include, from tutoring, much more introductory material. This easier material helped to transition students to the standard Hanrahan questions and old exam questions.
Shortly after, Mr Creelman also produced books for the new curricula, where students were now assessed separately in both Year 11 and Year 12.
In the 1990s, the Examining body commenced a new model called continuous assessment. Continuous assessment meant that students were being assessed on final exam material as early as February in their final year. While teaching Year 12 students at Trinity College, Mr Creelman realised that students needed access to old Exam questions right from the beginning of the year to prepare them for these continuous assessments. This led to the production of the Creelman Exam Questions.
These books of old exam questions are now used in more than a dozen ATAR courses and are still in wide use in WA schools.
Maths books
Working at St Andrew’s Grammar and then at Southern Hills Christian College, Mr Creelman gave his attention to the teaching of the Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 WA Maths syllabus.
While teaching these lower school courses, Mr Creelman noticed that the recommended textbooks provided by commercial eastern states publishers weighed more than 1.5 kg and contained between 600 and 900 pages. These books were more like Teacher’s guides rather than a book of student exercises. In some places the exercises did not correspond to the WA Maths curriculum.
Mr Creelman determined to produce a different series of Maths books for lower secondary students of Maths. These books were written as ten chapters of Maths exercises, together with a final chapter containing an End of year Exam. In total each book is around 150 pages and weighs around 200 grams. They have been recently revised to meet the 2026 WA curriculum.
Adult education
In 2024, Mr Creelman began teaching sailors in the Australian Navy, who needed to have a refresher course to bring them up to the Year 10 level in Maths. Here he developed a series of Topic booklets of exercises to supplement his explicit teaching of these key topics. Each of these booklets is around 20 pages. Being targeted towards adults most can be completed in less than 4 hours.
Faith based
In his teaching in faith based schools, Mr Creelman has developed some resources to help students see their work as a massive blessing given by God. Work is intended to be a privilege and pleasure for Mankind in obeying their God, serving their fellow human beings and caring for the earth. This project was partially inspired by the book, Every Good Endeavour by Tim Keller.
This website began as the legacy of resources Mr Creelman had developed as a teacher and tutor over several decades. Each product has been repeatedly classroom tested, and progressively improved with each usage. We are confident that many teachers will find these resources helpful.