Professional development for post-16 GCSE maths teachers which aims to improve GCSE maths outcomes for students in Further Education (FE) college settings. Approaches are underpinned by five key principles developed by the FE sector, which reflect the needs of students in the post-16 sector:
- Developing an understanding of mathematical structure.
- Building on students’ prior knowledge.
- Prioritising curriculum coherence and connections.
- Developing understanding and fluency in maths.
- Developing a collaborative culture, in which everyone can succeed.
Post-16 maths teachers receive two days of face-to-face professional development on the fundamental aspects of Mastering Maths, to be embedded within maths teaching. Teachers also meet five times across the year in lesson study groups, to observe and discuss the delivery of five exemplar Mastering Maths lessons, prepare delivery of exemplar lessons to their classes, and reflect on changing practice. Groups are clustered geographically and led by a Lead Trainer. Videoclips of practice, a handbook, 12 exemplar lessons, and prompts are provided.
Who can take part?
GCSE Maths resit students in FE colleges in England or sixth forms (where there are 50+ maths resit students), in the age range 16 to 19, are eligible to take part in the study, excluding those who pass their resit GCSE Maths exam in the autumn of 2024. Teachers must teach at least one GCSE Maths class, should not have participated in the efficacy trial as either a Lead Teacher or intervention teacher, and should not be taking part in the NCETM Teaching for Mastery “Trailblazer” or “Cohort 1” cohorts, or any other substantial professional development during 2024/25 academic year.
To find out more go to: Mastering Maths
Please note that recruitment will close once 160 teacher places have been filled.
Mastering Maths was previously evaluated by the University of Nottingham delivery team in the 2021 – 2022 academic year, through a three-armed randomised controlled trial involving 147 colleges and 7453 students. This trial found evidence of improvement in GCSE scores (the primary outcome measure), for students taught by teachers of the full Mastering Maths programme.
The identified improvement in GCSE scores was equivalent to one additional month’s progress. Students eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) made two additional months’ learning progress. The evaluators suggested that students from socially deprived backgrounds benefitted most from the more collaborative, safe, and social classroom environment fostered by the intervention, and that this may have contrasted with their previous experiences of more ‘didactical’ teaching.
This large scale randomised controlled trial aims to provide an independent and robust estimate of impact of the Mastering Maths programme, when delivered in every-day conditions, at scale by trained Lead Teachers (trainers).
This project will be evaluated by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) through a randomised controlled trial, randomised at setting level. This means that settings that sign up are randomly assigned to one of two groups: the ‘delivery’ group, who implement the programme being tested; or the control group, where practice continues as normal.
The aim of the evaluation will be to assess the impact of Mastering Maths on students’ GCSE Maths outcomes (the primary outcome). The trial will also evaluate the impact of Mastering Maths on students’ attitudes towards maths, and explore teachers views on maths and teaching maths to see if the programme appears to affect these. An Implementation and Process evaluation will be conducted alongside the impact evaluation to explore how settings implement the programme and stakeholder perceptions of Mastering Maths.
The evaluation report will be published in Summer 2026.