This project is no longer recruiting.
What is Mastering Number?
Mastering Number at Reception and KS1 is a whole-class programme consisting of four short sessions each week, aimed at developing children’s fluency and flexibility with number. Schools will be provided with the teaching materials, including rekenreks, necessary to deliver the sessions, as well as teacher guidance on small-group work and support to enhance continuous provision.
Who is leading this project?
This project is led by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) with additional delivery support to schools provided through the Maths Hubs network.
What will this project look like in your setting?
Schools allocated to receive the programme will use the provided teaching materials in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes for four, short sessions each week, aimed at developing children’s fluency and flexibility with number. Schools will receive rekenreks for use during these sessions.
In Reception, Mastering Number should be the main maths lesson for number-based work, but in KS1 it should be a short session for the whole class in addition to the main lesson. Suggestions for small-group intervention work are provided in the weekly teacher guides, and these can be used by teachers or teaching assistants with pupils at risk of falling behind. In Reception classes, teachers also incorporate Mastering Number into the class’s continuous provision and routines.
Schools are provided with:
- A termly online training session led by the NCETM, attended by one Lead Teacher from Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
- Local support from a Maths Hub, which may include online or in-person events.
- Two online workshops, aimed specifically at Headteachers.
Lead Teachers are also expected to actively contribute to an online community by sharing best practices, engaging in critical reflection, and, where appropriate, supporting other teachers within their year group.
As this is a research evaluation, both schools receiving the programme and control schools (continuing with business as usual) will be asked to complete some evaluation requirements during the project. This could include supporting the evaluators to carry out pupil assessments, as well as engaging in surveys and/or interviews with the evaluators. Exact evaluation requirements will be set out in the information materials if you express an interest in this project.
Who can take part?
Eligible schools must:
- Be a state-funded mainstream primary or infant school within a participating Maths Hub region in England
- Not have previously engaged with Mastering Number training and delivery
- Not be involved in other EEF-funded Reception or Early Maths trials in 2025/26
- None of the school’s Reception teachers will have previously been the Lead Teacher in Reception for the Mastering Number Programme in any school
Supported by the DfE, the NCETM Mastering Number at Reception and KS1 programme has now run for 4 years and will have reached approximately 10,000 schools by the end of the 2024/25 academic year. The programme aligns with evidence from the EEF Early Years Toolkit (2021), which finds that early numeracy approaches can lead to seven months of additional progress. Mastering Number supports children through a learning trajectory in number sense, as highlighted in the EEF’s systematic review of mathematics in the Early Years and Key Stage 1 (Hodgen et al., 2020). This is particularly relevant for addressing the attainment gap, as studies show that children from disadvantaged backgrounds often have weaker number skills (Elliott and Bachman, 2018).
Although the Mastering Number programme has not yet been independently evaluated, its content aligns with existing evidence on early numeracy. Two influential studies (Gray and Tall, 1994; Dowker, 2013) found that young children struggling with mathematics often use more difficult methods, such as counting procedures, rather than known number facts. Mastering Number aims to provide a more flexible approach to mathematics, helping children decompose and recombine numbers. This approach further supported by a Nuffield-funded review on teaching basic arithmetic using manipulativesobjects that educators and children can move and interact with to represent mathematical ideas (including fingers, everyday objects, such as buttons or pine cones, and mathematical resources such as Numicon, Cuisenaire rods). (Griffiths, Back, and Gifford, 2016). Understanding the effectiveness of this programme is valuable for knowing what works in improving mathematical attainment.
This programme will be evaluated by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) through a randomised controlled trialAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes.. The evaluation will assess the impact of the NCETM Mastering Number at Reception and KS1 Programme on Reception pupils’ mathematical attainment. Schools will have an equal chance of receiving the NCETM Mastering Number at Reception and KS1 Programme, or being assigned to the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution., who will continue with their usual activities and will be guaranteed a place on the programme in 2026/27 (subject to continued DfE funding).
The evaluation will be an effectiveness trial, testing the programme at scale under everyday conditions in a large number of schools. Alongside the impact evaluation, an implementation and process evaluationAn IPE is used to understand how and why an intervention has (or has not) been successful. Data is analysed to explore programme quality, reach, adaptation and differentiation, as well as setting fidelity and responsiveness to the trial design. will be conducted to explore how schools implement the programme and their perceptions of it.
The evaluation report will be published in Summer 2027.