: Where Mistakes Become Learning: Making Problem-Solving the Heart of Our Maths Let’s be honest — we’ve all seen maths lessons where problem-solving is just an afterthought…
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Where Mistakes Become Learning: Making Problem-Solving the Heart of Our Maths
Let’s be honest — we’ve all seen maths lessons where problem-solving is just an afterthought…
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by Hampshire Research School at Front Lawn Primary
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Charlotte Chessell, Deputy Director of the Hampshire Research School, explores how shifting from "answer-hunting" to a culture of modeling and resilience turns every maths mistake into a powerful step toward independence.
Let’s be honest — we’ve all seen maths lessons where problem-solving is just an afterthought, usually a ‘challenge’ slide for the kids who finish early on a Friday. At Front Lawn, we’re trying to scrap that. We want problem-solving to be the heartbeat of our lessons, not just an optional extra. Based on the EEF’s guidance for Key Stages 2 and 3, we’ve seen that problem-solving works best when it’s simply “the way we do things” every single day.
Why the shift in culture? When we prioritise the process over just getting the right answer, the whole classroom vibe changes. It’s not just about memorising a procedure anymore; it’s about giving children the tools to tackle problems they haven’t seen before. It builds a kind of “maths resilience” where being stuck isn’t a sign of failure – it’s just the first step of learning. Our pupils are becoming more independent, sharing their shortcuts and strategies and actually talking about how they think.
Putting it into practice
We are not just telling the children to solve problems; we’re showing them how. This means:
Maths is a routine, not a surprise: We weave problem-solving into every lesson so it feels normal, not scary.
Thinking out loud: We use “teacher think-alouds” to show the kids that even we don’t always have the answer right away. We model how to plan, how to pivot when a strategy fails, and how to check our work.
Better conversations: We’ve moved away from “Yes/No” answers. Now, we ask pupils to compare their methods and explain why one way might be faster or clearer than another.
Celebrating the struggle: We make a big deal out of persistence and clever reasoning. We want our kids to have a “growth mindset” where a tough problem is just a puzzle waiting to be solved.
The Front Lawn Approach in Action – We recently put this into practice during a lesson where pupils had to design the largest possible garden using a fixed length of fencing. Instead of just handing out a formula, the teacher started by “thinking aloud” through a failed attempt. By intentionally showing that the first try doesn’t always work, it helped take the pressure off and normalised the struggle.
As the children explored different shapes, the room was buzzing — not with people looking for the “right” answer, but with pupils explaining why a square created more space than a long rectangle. Mistakes, like miscalculating a perimeter, weren’t hidden away; they were used as “lightbulb moments” for the whole class to discuss.
Ultimately, we’re moving away from maths being a dry list of rules. We’re turning it into a subject driven by curiosity. It’s what the research tells us works, but more importantly, it’s giving our children the confidence to take a risk and see where it leads whilst creating inquisitive mathematicians that will shape our future.
