Research School Network: Maths matters: so why is it not a priority? Schools rightly prioritise pupils’ literacy skills – but why do we often see maths as less of a priority?

There has been a significant focus in schools in recent years on improving pupils’ literacy. Whether that focus is on the oral language of our youngest pupils, or the reading fluency and subject-specific vocabulary of our secondary pupils, literacy has been dominant on school improvement plans and pupil premium strategy documents.

And there is good reason for this. Young people who leave school without good literacy skills are held back at every stage of life. Their outcomes are poorer on almost every measure, from health and wellbeing, to employment and finance (EEF, 2018).

But what about maths?

In the Early Years, developing a sound understanding of mathematics is essential. Children’s early mathematical understanding is strongly associated with their later school achievement (Duncan, 2007) and has, therefore, a major impact on young people’s educational progress and life outcomes (EEF, 2021a). And as children get older, outcomes in mathematics at age 11 are a strong predictor of success at GCSE – not just in mathematics, but across every subject domain.

So why isn’t mathematics as prevalent as literacy on schools’ improvement plans?

Our team recently undertook a review of schools’ public-facing Pupil Premium strategy documents. This is something we do regularly: our core mission as a Research School is to support schools in narrowing the disadvantage gap, so it is important for us to remain in touch with how schools are doing this.

Within our region of focus, we took a representative sample of 50% of the schools, across both Primary and secondary phases. Our analysis showed that the vast majority of these schools (93%) recognised literacy as a priority for supporting their most vulnerable learners. What’s more, the plans identified specific aspects of literacy for development, often identified through the use of robust diagnostic assessment to pinpoint the precise literacy challenges and how these were to be addressed.

This came as no surprise.

What was surprising is that only 35% of schools recognised developing maths as a priority. And of those that did, this priority was far less clearly defined, with plans generally referring to ​“improving maths outcomes” rather than the precise detail found in the literacy challenges. There was also a noticeable difference in the quality of the diagnostic assessment being used to identify maths priorities when compared to literacy.

So why is this? Without talking to each individual school we can’t know for sure, but we provide 3 possible reasons below.

1. Leaders have developed a strong understanding of the building blocks of successful literacy such as reading and writing through models such as the Scarborough Reading Rope, EEF’s Reading Comprehension House, and the Simple View of Writing (EEF, 2021b). This allows them to be more diagnostic and precise when identifying areas for development. Despite some tools for maths such as Development Progressions (Clements & Samara, 2014), these remain less well known and do not cover all phases.
2. The research evidence around effective mathematics teaching is less well known and, where it is known, provides a significant implementation challenge. An example of this is phonics, which is frequently packaged in schemes which are relatively easy to implement and come with specific core components. Contrast this to the evidence base around the use of manipulatives in maths teaching, which can seem vague and challenging to put into practice in comparison.
3. Diagnostic assessments for literacy are well-established, and schools often buy in to external standardised tools to support them in identifying literacy challenges. An examples of these is GL assessments’ ​‘New Group Reading Test’ (NGRT). It is more difficult to find meaningful parallel assessments to correctly identify specific mathematics needs.

In part 2 of this blog, which is coming soon, we will explore what leaders might do in order to better diagnose specific maths needs, and to use evidence to ensure their actions are given the best chance of success.

References

Clements, D.H., & Sarama, J. (2014). Learning and Teaching Early Math: The Learning Trajectories Approach (2^nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203520574

Duncan, G., Dowsett, C., Claessens, A., Magnuson, K., Huston, A., Klebanov, P., Pagani, L et al. (2007). ​‘School Readiness and Later Achievement’. Developmental psychology, 43(6), 1428. DOI: 10.1037÷0012− 1649.43.6.1428

Education Endowment Foundation (2018). Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools [Guidance report]

Education Endowment Foundation (2021a). Improving Mathematics in the Early Years and Key Stage 1 [Guidance report]

Education Endowment Foundation (2021b). Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 [Guidance report]