Is it time to look beyond ‘teaching for mastery’ in maths?

Few can deny that the landscape of mathematics education has drastically changed over the last decade and a half. The emergence of ‘Teaching for Mastery’ in the mid- to late-2010s, linked to approaches to maths in east Asian high-performing jurisdictions (particularly Shanghai), combined with moves back towards more ‘traditional’ approaches to teaching (sparked by the tenure of Michael Gove as education secretary), have had a profound impact on the maths teaching practices used in schools across England.

Some will say that the impact of this is clear for all to see. England’s performance in international assessments seems to be improving. For example, in the PISA tests England’s score rose from 492 in 2012 to 504 in 2018, whilst in the same period the OECD average dropped from 494 to 489. Admittedly, in 2022 England’s score fell back to 492, but the OECD average dropped to 472 in the same period (widely attributed to the impact of the COVID pandemic). Similar gains have been seen in the TIMSS results as well.

However, there are some troubling figures as well, particularly when we look at those who struggle most with mathematics. In the same international tests, the gaps between the lowest attaining and highest attaining pupils have widened significantly over the last decade (although again, partly attributable to the pandemic). The top students have improved; with the percentage of year 9s achieving the ‘Advanced benchmark’ nearly doubling (8% to 15%) between 2007 and 2023. In the same period, though, those failing to meet the lowest benchmark have risen from 7% to 9%, and even before the pandemic was 8%. In addition, although scores have risen, they have not risen ‘equally’. Since 2007, year 9 pupils have seen their scores in the TIMMS in the ‘knowing’ and ‘applying’ domains shoot up by 11 and 17 points respectively. However, in the ‘reasoning’ domain scores have only improved by 5 points. This is despite ‘mathematical thinking’ being listed as one of the five key strands of teaching for mastery (which, you would hope, would encompass mathematical reasoning ability).

It is not just in international assessments that the gaps in teaching for mastery begin to appear. Tony Staneff recently did a bit a deep dive into the last nine years of the National Reference Tests, used with year 11 pupils to decide whether there are significant cohort shifts in attainment to aid with the setting of GCSE grade boundaries. Tony found the same story, that grade 7 attainment has risen significantly even after being reset following the pandemic, whilst grade 4 has remained remarkably stable even through the pandemic years. This suggests that more pupils in year 11 are getting into position to be awarded those top grades of 7 or better, but that this is not the case for those pupils who might be aiming for grade 4. Basically, there are more pupils getting to the top, but no more pupils getting out of the bottom.

It isn’t just in outcomes that these question marks over the impact of teaching for mastery arises. There have been a couple of recent research reports that have cast doubt on how well aspects of teaching for mastery are translating into schools. The Observatory for Mathematical Education, in its 2025 review highlighted that only 39% of year 7 pupils say that their ‘teacher shows how different topics link together’, despite ‘coherence’ being one of the big ideas in teaching for mastery. Similarly, secondary teachers reported the use of manipulatives in only 7% of lessons (although representations fared better at 52%), despite representation and structure being another key pillar of the teaching for mastery approach, and widely recognised as being a useful strategy for those learners who find mathematics difficult.

Another recent report, ‘The Student Grouping Study’ by UCL also found that teachers rarely provide manipulatives, although the figure here was higher (in the region of 20%). In the same survey, teachers also reported that tasks without an obvious solution were not frequently used, despite the aforementioned ‘mathematical thinking’ being a key component of teaching for mastery.

Taken collectively it would appear that, although maths education has undoubtedly improved overall in the last 20 years, the provision and outcomes for those that struggle to learn mathematics remains stubbornly behind. And so, the question must be asked, what next to support these learners? While I believe that the principles and practices of teaching for mastery represent a sound way of learning mathematics, is it that they are insufficient to the task of improving the lot of those who find mathematics most difficult? Or is it simply that more work needs to be done to embed them in schools so that lower attainers can feel their full benefit? If they are insufficient, what else do we need to ensure teachers are doing to make mathematics education as inclusive as possible?

I think part of this has to come from shifting what we value from a mathematical education. The TIMSS data, along with several other studies looking at things like why girls tend to underperform compared to boys in mathematics, indicate that a significant part of the ‘diet’ that pupils are fed in the mathematics classroom still focuses on accuracy, speed and procedure. A mathematical education that prioritises these aspects is always going to leave a proportion of pupils behind. Those pupils who need longer to process things, who might struggle to sequence information quickly, or who simply find it difficult to engage when things don’t make sense will all falter when this is what a mathematics education entails. 

For me, we need to ensure that what is valued in the mathematics classroom is pupils making sense of mathematical ideas just as much as their ability to remember facts and carry out procedures. We need to make it a priority to show pupils how the maths they learn connects and builds on itself, highlighting all the links that exist through a focus on mathematical structure, and consistent use of models and manipulatives/ representations to allow pupils to engage with that structure. We need a curriculum that sequences these things right from the off and provides the proper guidance and support for teachers to pick up their part of the journey of school mathematics learning in a way that will reinforce what came before and ensure that solid foundations are laid for what is to follow. We need to make sure that those teachers have access to the training and development they need to deliver the outstanding education that our struggling pupils require. And we need to make sure that our schools have the workforce of high-quality teachers of mathematics that can make this a reality.