Research School Network: Unlocking the Power of Mathematical Discussion in the Classroom By James Hartley, Year 3 Teacher, Maths Lead, and Staff Development Lead at The Belham Primary School

Unlocking the Power of Mathematical Discussion in the Classroom

Picture this: it’s a maths lesson. You’ve displayed a reasoning problem designed to challenge your pupils’ thinking, encouraging them to discuss their ideas with a partner. You step back to observe, hoping to hear the buzz of collaborative learning. Instead, one of several scenarios unfolds:

Both children talk over each other in a chaotic jumble of words, occasionally veering off-topic to recount that one time a wasp flew into the classroom.


One child dominates the conversation, gesturing like a seasoned orator, while their partner nods politely, contributing little.


Or worse, both pupils fall silent, gazing out of the window, perhaps searching for that wasp instead of engaging with the problem.


Sound familiar?

These moments, though frustrating, reveal an important truth: discussing mathematical problems productively is not an innate skill. For many pupils, the rigid, binary nature of maths — where answers are typically right or wrong — can discourage exploratory thinking. This fosters an ​“all-or-nothing” mindset that prioritises correctness over process.

Instead, we want pupils to engage in meaningful discussions, noticing patterns, connecting problems to prior learning, and identifying essential or non-essential information. These are vital cognitive processes that lead to deeper understanding and problem-solving success.

The Role of Metacognition

One of the keys to fostering productive mathematical discussion lies in metacognition. Often summarised as ​“thinking about thinking,” metacognition involves developing awareness and control over one’s cognitive processes. It includes planning how to tackle a task, monitoring progress during the task, and evaluating the outcome afterwards.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) highlights the importance of metacognitive talk in their Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning Guidance. Recommendation 5 specifically states the need to ​“promote and develop metacognitive talk in the classroom.” Pupil-to-pupil dialogue, when structured and purposeful, can significantly enhance understanding of both cognitive and metacognitive strategies .


According to the guidance, disadvantaged pupils may face greater challenges in developing metacognitive skills, as they are less likely to have been exposed to structured opportunities for reflection and discussion at home, making it vital for schools to explicitly teach and scaffold these skills in the classroom.


Structured Support in Practice


In our school, we use metacognitive questioning scaffolds based on the EEF’s guidance to guide pupils through the different stages of problem-solving. These questions, introduced as early as Year 1, enable even the youngest learners to ​“notice” something about a problem.


By using metacognitive questions before, during, and after tasks, pupils develop habits of self-regulation that extend beyond the maths lesson. For example:


Before:​“What do I already know that could help me solve this problem?”

During: ​“Am I making progress? Is this strategy working?”

After: ​“What could I do differently next time?”

This approach not only supports rich discussions but also provides teachers with a framework for explicitly modelling the cognitive processes of planning, monitoring, and evaluating.

By integrating structured metacognitive scaffolding, we are helping pupils develop the skills to approach mathematical reasoning confidently and collaboratively. This framework empowers them to think deeply, discuss purposefully, and reflect meaningfully.

In our next blog, we will explore how teachers can explicitly model metacognitive processes in the classroom, further embedding these strategies into everyday teaching practice.