School Gate: How to crack number lines and other new maths techniques

Family maths classes and arithmetic-themed coffee mornings for parents could help to improve standards in the subject in primary schools, the government spending watchdog says today.

The National Audit Office report into maths performance in primary schools found that nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of 11-year-olds in 2007 did not reach the standard expected of their age. This was despite primary schools in England spending £2.3 billion on teaching maths in 2006-07, with each school devoting about an hour a day to the subject.

The 30 per cent increase in revenue spending on primary schools since 1999 to 2000 was producing diminishing returns, the report said, concluding that primary schools were likely to miss government targets for improvement in maths for 2011 by a wide margin.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, said that although attainment of the subject in primary schools was on a rising curve, the underlying picture of maths teaching in primary schools was “far from rosy”.

“Last year 66,000 children did not make the progress promised by their early attainment. The evidence is that many of these children will not go on to make a success of their GCSEs. So even at the age of 11 they are in danger of being left behind,” he said.

The proportion of 11-year-olds achieving a Level 4 pass, the standard expected of their age, was well below the government target of 85 per cent, the report said. At current rates of progress, only 78 per cent of children were likely to meet the new target for 2011, which requires 84.5 per cent of children to make two levels of progress in maths between the ages of 7 and 11, it concluded.

The report, which examined maths teaching in 28 schools, suggested that one way to help to close these gaps and improve the effectiveness of maths teaching, would be to involve parents more.

Examples of good practice include family learning events ranging from informal coffee mornings to parental classes on the curriculum.

One of the best schools visited by the researchers sent parents a maths newsletter each term focusing on particular topics. A subtraction newsletter described seven methods the school used to teach the subject.

“Feedback is positive with many adults surprised to find that the method they learnt at school is only one of the techniques their children are being taught,” the report said.

Maths is the only core subject where 11-year-old boys achieve better results than girls, the report said. It recommended that the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) identify what teaching methods work with girls.

Pupils from Chinese and Indian ethnic groups do consistently better than white children, but black African, black Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups do significantly less well, though the gap has narrowed in recent years.

The biggest gap in attainment is between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. At Key Stage 2 the difference is currently 20 percentage points, with only a small narrowing of the gap over the past three years.

Six per cent (34,000) of 11-year-olds had acquired the mathematical skills only at or below those expected of a seven-year-old but the study did not explore whether or not these children had special educational needs.

The report echoed the findings of the DCSF review by Sir Peter Williams, chairman of the Government's Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education, who recommended more specialist training for primary schoolteachers.

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