Maths education: the present, the future, and how to get there

Where are we?

I’ll start with the good news…

• The teaching for mastery pedagogy, developed by the NCETM, informed by national and international research, is being adopted successfully in increasing numbers of primary and secondary schools throughout England. Is also informing improvements in post-16 maths teaching at all levels.
• As I discussed in my previous blog post, Ofsted’s ‘Coordinating mathematical success’ report, published in July 2023, highlights improvements in both primary and secondary maths teaching. 
• The NCETM, the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP) and the Maths Hubs Network are well-established, providing high-quality, fully funded professional development for teachers of maths at all levels, from Early Years to A level Further Maths.
• At post-16, A level Maths and Further Maths numbers remain strong and Core Maths numbers have been maintained, despite the Covid pandemic.

However…

• Alongside the positives, the recent Ofsted maths report also highlighted several weaknesses and challenges, a key one being the recruitment and retention of specialist secondary maths teachers.
• The disruption to education caused by the Covid pandemic has had a significant negative impact, reversing much pre-pandemic progress in maths attainment. I suspect that the ongoing issue of poor school attendance post-Covid may be especially damaging for maths because, more than other subjects, maths learning depends on prior learning.
• Whilst it is good news that, of young people who did not have a Level 2 pass in GCSE Maths (grade 4 or above) by age 16, almost 60,000 achieved a Level 2 pass by age 19, the large majority, more than 100,000, did not (2021/22 data).
• The recently-published 2022 PISA results for maths show that, although it seems like good news that England has risen up the international rankings in maths, there was a significant fall in England’s score. This provides further evidence of the negative impact of Covid on maths education.

The secondary maths teacher shortage is the greatest current challenge. Virtually all secondary schools struggle to recruit specialist maths teachers, and those in the most disadvantaged areas find it the hardest. As a result, schools must use teachers trained in other subjects to fill the gaps, usually assigning teachers of other subjects to Key Stage 3 classes. These teachers play a vital role. As I’ve said before, Years 7, 8 and 9 are the most crucial years in secondary maths education, when students can build from the foundations laid in primary school to become confident mathematical thinkers, ready to flourish in maths at GCSE level and beyond. We should give teachers of maths at KS3 all the support we can. 

We must find ways to address the specialist maths teacher recruitment and retention problem, but if your school deploys teachers of other subjects to teach maths, please take advantage of the NCETM’s Specialist Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics – Non-specialist Teachers Programme. It meets a key recommendation from Ofsted’s recent maths report: ‘…make sure that non-specialist teachers receive the necessary professional development, including subject knowledge and subject specific pedagogical knowledge, to teach mathematics effectively’. Supporting teachers of other subjects to develop a second specialism in maths can help ensure your school has capacity to provide effective maths teaching. Schools will soon be starting to think about their timetables for 2024/25 and this fully-funded NCETM programme can help participants prepare for their new September classes, with Maths Hubs offering programmes that start from the summer term.

Where are we trying to get to?

This is easy to describe, but very hard to achieve.
We need a system where every child has fair access to a high-quality maths education that will equip them to use maths with confidence in life and work and to achieve their aspirations.

The OECD’s PISA framework describes mathematical literacy as: 

‘… an individual’s capacity to reason mathematically and to formulate, employ, and interpret mathematics to solve problems in a variety of real-world contexts. It includes concepts, procedures, facts, and tools to describe, explain, and predict phenomena. It helps individuals know the role that mathematics plays in the world and make the well-founded judgments and decisions needed by constructive, engaged and reflective 21st Century citizens.’

I believe this is the minimum we should aim for all to achieve and that this means that all should study maths to age 18, because there’s much more to mathematical literacy than mastery of the GCSE Maths curriculum. Young people need to learn how to apply maths in context and become data literate, which is why I am such a strong advocate of Core Maths. Many need to study maths to A level standard and beyond to fulfil their potential in a world increasingly shaped by maths and data.

How might we get there?

To enable all students to access a high-quality maths education, we need to get teaching, learning and curriculum right. 

Through the NCETM, the AMSP and the Maths Hubs, high-quality, fully-funded professional development is widely available to teachers of maths in all schools. Unfortunately, the shortage of maths teachers means many secondary schools and MATs feel they lack the capacity to release their maths teachers to take advantage of professional development opportunities. My message to these schools and MATs is that engaging with the Maths Hubs will help them to improve their maths provision. The Maths Hubs enable teachers of maths to access high-quality support, and share ideas and good practice in a positive, collaborative way, improving maths teaching and reducing teacher workload.

To address the maths teacher shortage, teacher retention is as important as teacher recruitment, and teachers of maths who engage with collaborative professional development opportunities through their local Maths Hub say that it enhances their job satisfaction and helps to keep them in teaching. 

Technology will play an increasing role in reducing workload through automated online marking and online teaching materials. The new Oak National Academy maths lesson materials, aligned to the NCETM’s teaching for mastery pedagogy and available free of charge, promise to be a major boon for teachers of maths, helping to reduce lesson preparation time. To enable increased participation in maths post-16, teaching capacity can be expanded by blending face-to-face teaching with online self-study, and using teachers of other numerate, data-rich subjects to contribute to teaching Core Maths. 

The work of the Royal Society’s Mathematical Futures group and the recent Advanced British Standard government policy paper suggest how the maths curriculum may develop into the future, with studying maths to age 18 becoming the norm, and stronger links between maths, statistics, data science and computing. Nevertheless, the fundamental content of the maths curriculum is unlikely to change up to the end of Key Stage 3, because it provides essential underpinning for everything that follows. To achieve the goals set out above, students need to master this fundamental content, and we know the teaching for mastery pedagogy can enable them to do this.

As MEI has recommended, I believe that future assessments should enable all pre-16 students to demonstrate a secure understanding of this fundamental maths before progressing to higher levels of maths. This would help remove barriers to mathematical literacy and improve attitudes to maths.

There are many challenges to overcome and no quick fixes, but the overall trajectory seems right. With continued commitment to improving maths education at all levels over the next ten years, we can succeed in developing a mathematically-literate population in which ‘individuals know the role that mathematics plays in the world and make the well-founded judgments and decisions needed by constructive, engaged and reflective 21st Century citizens.’