Aligning curriculum reform and assessment with teaching for mastery in primary maths

Peter Foulds and David Thomas's article regarding the primary curriculum and potential reform, recently published in the TES, chimes strongly with the existing work of the NCETM and the Maths Hubs Programme.

At the NCETM we welcome their suggestions and agree that such reforms would help teachers embed the Five Big Ideas that underpin our Teaching for Mastery Programme into their school’s principles and practices.

Ten years after the inception of Maths Hubs, over 70% of England’s primary schools have chosen to engage with the NCETM/Maths Hubs' Teaching for Mastery Programme. Maths Hubs support these schools to embed teaching for mastery pedagogy and improve maths teaching in Reception and across Key Stages 1 and 2. Implementing a rigorous new pedagogy to transform the way maths is taught is a major challenge for schools and whilst teachers and leaders in the schools involved are rising to the challenge, we all acknowledge there is no ‘quick fix’ – it takes time for leaders’ effort and reflection to bring about and embed meaningful schoolwide improvements to teaching.

Curriculum content and precision

The NCETM recognises the argument to reduce the curriculum content as well-founded and has previously acknowledged the extra content present in the English maths curriculum compared to worldwide high-performing jurisdictions. As an interim measure to address the content overload, we created primary mathematics guidance, published by the DfE in 2020. This guidance identifies essential areas of the mathematics curriculum and outlines ‘ready to progress criteria’—the mathematical knowledge and skills that pupils in each year group need to acquire so they can progress successfully to the next year’s content.

These expectations are clear, explicit, and exemplified. For example:

• In Year 2, pupils should recognise the place value of each digit in two-digit numbers and compose and decompose two-digit numbers using standard and non-standard partitioning.
• In Year 3, pupils should secure fluency in addition and subtraction facts that bridge 10, through continued practice. This is crucial, as although pupils will have been introduced to these facts in Year 2, they need time to secure them for continued application throughout KS2 and beyond.

Fluency and the Mastering Number Programme

The importance of fluency, which Foulds and Thomas highlight, is fully recognised in the teaching for mastery framework. The Mastering Number Programme was developed to support schools in improving pupils’ fluency in basic facts and number relationships. The Mastering Number teaching and professional development materials break down essential learning into small coherent steps, akin to a phonics approach, and are available to teachers of mathematics from Reception through to Key Stages 1 and 2. The thousands of schools that are already using Mastering Number report that attainment is increasing, and gaps are narrowing in classrooms that have used this approach.

Mathematics enjoyment 

Foulds and Thomas discuss the importance of enjoyment in mathematics, a sentiment echoed by schools engaged in teaching for mastery. Mastery of fundamental mathematics enables maths to become a powerful transferable skill that people can use and enjoy throughout their life and work, far beyond utility. Schools report increased enjoyment of the subject across all aspects of mathematical learning - including problem-solving. Teaching for mastery does not feel like a muddle or a slog but a connected, coherent, small-step approach providing access for all pupils. Teachers note that it is "the magic within the teaching" that facilitates both learning and enjoyment.

Professional development

The NCETM strongly agrees that teacher professional development must accompany any curriculum reform. As the article states: "Fortunately, we have a great infrastructure for professional development in this country, which we are sure is up to the challenge." The core of that ‘great infrastructure’ is the NCETM and the Maths Hubs Network, and we are ready and prepared to meet the challenge.

Conclusion

Notwithstanding the achievements of the NCETM and the Maths Hubs, an overloaded curriculum remains a barrier to realising the full potential of the mathematics Teaching for Mastery Programme. School leaders and teachers experience a tension between mastery and coverage, often unable to give all pupils sufficient time to fully master key concepts. Reducing curriculum content would allow expert teachers sufficient time to enable all pupils to establish deep and lasting foundations of essential content. This would result in better Key Stage 2 results – well beyond the current ‘pass mark’ of 50%, and cohorts of pupils ready to study mathematics, and mathematically-related subjects, at secondary school and beyond.

Foulds and Thomas call for a curriculum that supports pupils to apply learning fluently before moving on. The NCETM, Maths Hubs and the thousands of teachers who have already embedded a mastery pedagogy agree and support this call for change. We welcome the new government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review and look forward to explaining how we believe a leaner and more precisely defined curriculum will support our work to support all schools in England to implement the teaching for mastery approach successfully.

The NCETM and Maths Hubs share the ambition that all children can succeed in and take pleasure from mathematics. Curriculum reform, in tandem with an effective pedagogy and implementation mechanism via the Maths Hubs Network, might do just that.