Research School Network: Secondary case study: Sixth Formers supporting year 7s with Maths The pilot Fractions Foundations project looked at supporting year 7s in the early stages of their move to secondary school

‘There is a large dip in mathematical attainment and attitudes towards maths as children move from primary to secondary school in England. For example, one large national study of primary attainment in England found that, at the end of Year 7 — a full year after the transition to secondary school — pupils’ performance on a test of primary numeracy was below their performance at the end of Year 6’
EEF Improving Mathematics in KS2 and 3

In order to begin to tackle this challenge of the transition, Huntington signed up for the pilot Fractions Foundations project led by the North Yorkshire Coast Research School. The approach being used was to set up 1−2−1 support led by Sixth Formers supporting year 7 pupils.

The EEF guide on effective tutoring identifies the importance of pupil selection. As part of their transition, students had undertaken a baseline assessment and this was coupled with student progress in their first few weeks of year 7. Equally, the selection of Sixth Formers was considered carefully and we were looking for the following qualities:

- Students who are studying ALevel Maths
- Effective communicator (based on teacher selection)
- Students who have previously shown an interest in a career relying on mathematical or coaching/​teaching skills
- Students who had proven themselves with aspects such as time keeping and we were confident would be a good role model.
- Students who would benefit from building their confidence and show casing their love for mathematics

Sixth form students had one day of training around cognitive science and then had a script for each session . Sessions took place weekly for 30 minutes over the course of 8 weeks. The script worked at backwards fading, repeating the knowledge until year 7 students could recall without prompts. The script for each session was developed by the North Yorkshire Coast Research School.

Why fractions?
Fractions were chosen as the topic to focus on because:

1. Feedback from secondary schools in Research School training sessions was frequently mentioning fractions as a particular issue at transition
2. There is an issue in the curriculum at around Y6/7 where fractions move from being considered mostly as a part of a whole to mostly as a divisor
3. Fractions continue to be very important to the curriculum through to GCSE and beyond
4. Research evidence would say that fractions is often a really tricky concept for students to understand (recommendation 5 from the What Works Clearinghouse report)

Monitoring
An important aspect was a lead teacher who communicated with all the pupils involved, their families and completed quality assurance visits to the sessions.

Year 7 pupils completed a pre and post test that included questions about their confidence, as well as fractions questions. Confidence increased after the sessions and parental feedback showed consistently that students were happier to talk around mathematics with their parents. Additionally, a 25% average test score on fractions in the pre test was converted to 100% at the post test.

This suggested proof of impact, albeit at a very small scale. As a maths department, our next steps are now to train more Sixth Formers in the approach and make this a consistent approach to our transition offer.