Thank you again to our brilliant Chair, Professor Lord Tarassenko CBE, to our co-leads Dr Helen Drury and David Monis Weston, and to all of our fantastic Executive Group. Their experience and insight has been truly invaluable.
And this is not the end! More from Maths Horizons will be coming...
We shared our 7 recommendations in the House of Lords in May, and we are delighted to be able to share the full report today.
Since September 2024, we have heard from hundreds of experts through interviews and consultation feedback, as well as roundtable discussions and school visits, as well as conducting large-scale polling through Public First.
Today, Maths Horizons publishes our full report about the future of maths curriculum and assessment in England, and features in the Sunday Times here: www.thetimes.com/uk/education...
They are supported by an Executive Group of advisors, including teachers, leaders and experts from primary, secondary and further education, as well as academia and industry. We are immensely grateful to all involved for their contributions to the project.
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Maths Horizons is co-led by Dr Helen Drury and David Monis-Weston from Purposeful Ventures, and chaired by Professor Lord Lionel Tarassenko from Reuben College, Oxford University.
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You can read the executive overview of all of these recommendations here: mathshorizons.uk/reports
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Today’s report, titled ‘How England should reform maths education for the age of AI’, offers a blueprint to reform maths curriculum and assessment, which would support the aspiration for England to become one the top-performing countries in the world for maths.
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Maths Horizons is an independent review of maths curriculum and assessment in England . It seeks to provide evidence and analysis, to support the Government’s own Curriculum and Assessment Review, and the wider debate about the future of education and the economy.
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Maths Horizons’ vision is to raise standards in maths at every level, from ensuring that students leave education with secure fundamental knowledge, to an ambitious increase in advanced mathematical study. We have visualised these levels here...
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Today, Maths Horizons is delighted to be publishing our report about the future of maths curriculum and assessment in England.
Our launch event at the House of Lords later today will present the following seven recommendations:
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We are delighted to have published our Interim Report for the Maths Horizons Project today: www.mathshorizons.uk/interim-report
This report reflects on some of what we have learned so far through an extensive range of contributors. We would love to hear your thoughts on the findings!
For more analysis, or to contribute your thoughts on why this might eb the case, please visit the Maths Horizons website: www.mathshorizons.uk/post/how-do-...
It had been suggested to us that teachers straight out of qualifying might prefer the structure and support of a relatively rigid curriculum, then start to favour a more malleable framework as they grow in experience. But our findings didn’t support this.
We also asked about the level of detail in the frameworks and resources. When it comes to receiving this information on what to teach, “guided flexibility” was the preferred approach by nearly half of primary and secondary teachers (49% and 48% respectively).
Most teachers across were opposed to a granular level of central control being exercised over topics they teach. Among both phases of education, there was a pretty even split over whether it was best to specify topics to be taught on a termly, annual or key stage-level basis.
We wanted to understand whether the maths curriculum meet the needs of higher education institutions and employers, and what the roles of these institutions are in the education process.
Our final investigation, on ensuring the 5-18 maths curriculum and assessment structure is giving all students access to work and/or further study, is well and truly under way.
Here's a🧵on some of the data that we have got back.
For full analysis, or to contribute to our fourth investigation, please visit the Maths Horizons website.
www.mathshorizons.uk/post/maths-e...
Once again, there was a difference in the least affluent schools, where only 29% of teachers wanted to expand the availability of Further Maths, and where more teachers were unsure what they would do if they were in charge.
Two fifths (41%) of secondary teachers would expand its availability to make it possible for students in every school to be able to study it, while just 2% wanted to remove the course completely.
The availability of the Further Maths A-Level emerged as a really controversial area in our early findings, with some comments suggesting that it should be scrapped if not all schools could offer it, while others suggested that we should do more to offer it universally...
In the most affluent quartile of schools, only 22% of teachers thought that less than a tenth of their students had potential to pursue a maths-related degree. But in the least affluent quartile schools this rose to 47%.
We found that school’s deprivation level (based on proportion of students eligible for free school meals) was a predictor of the proportion of students believed to have the potential to pursue a mathematical degree.
We asked secondary teachers what percentage of students in their school show potential to pursue university courses in maths or related fields.
Our fourth investigation has focused on maths excellence during A-Levels.
Teachers in less affluent schools are almost twice as likely to believe that <10% of their students have the potential to study maths at university, compared to teachers in more affluent settings.
Please contribute your views on the maths curriculum as preparation for work here: www.mathshorizons.uk/get-involved...
We want to consider whether maths education is giving all students access to employment, whether it meets the needs of different higher education institutions and different types of employer, and what role employers play, or should play, in the education process.