This project is no longer recruiting.However there are up to 5000 further DfE-funded places available from July 2026, please express interest via National Day Nurseries Association directly.
What is Maths Champions?
Maths Champions programme builds the knowledge of nursery practitioners to support children’s early mathematical development. It is an online, one-year programme delivered to both Private, Voluntary or Independent (PVI), maintained and school-based nursery settings. Please note the childminders are not currently eligible. This is due to the evidence of impact only currently being for nurseries and PVIs. The impact for childminders has not been tested.
Who is leading the programme?
The National Day Nurseries Association is leading the project, a charity that supports the early years workforce to deliver high quality early childhood education and care.
What will this programme look like in your setting?
In each setting, a ‘Maths Champion’ is selected: a senior member of staff, who is supported to drive improvement in maths practice across the setting. This member of staff, with support of an allocated Deputy Maths Champion, is supported to audit current practice and create and implement an action plan for supporting colleagues to improve maths practice throughout the year. The support includes bespoke online training, including modules on early mathematical development and coaching, resources, and one-to-one support.
Who can take part?
- All PVI, maintained and school-based nursery settings in England are eligible to participate in the programme.
- Settings must nominate a Maths Champion and Deputy Maths Champion who are qualified at Level 3 or above.
- Settings must have children accessing 3- and 4‑year-old places attending for at least 15 hours per week
The EEF has run two Randomised Controlled TrialsAn 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. of the Maths Champions programme, which both showed positive outcomes for children’s mathematical attainment. The EEF’s first trial found an impact of two additional months’ progress for children who had received the Maths Champions programme compared to children in settings who did not receive the programme. The EEF then funded a larger effectiveness trial evaluation of programme, which had some amendments designed to improve outcomes, which found that children in PVI and school-based nurseries receiving the Maths Champions programme made an average of 3 additional months’ progress in maths and language compared to children in settings that did not receive the programme. There were also indications of a larger impact for children in receipt of Early Years Pupil Premium. The results of these trials provide strong evidence for the effectiveness of the Maths Champions programme for improving children’s maths outcomes in early years settings.
As Maths Champions has been shown to have positive impact on children’s outcomes in EEF trials, the Department for Education are fully funding delivery at scale in 2026, with 1800 places available for PVI, maintained and school-based nursery settings in England to access the programme at no cost.
We are commissioning external evaluators to gain further insights into how Maths Champions is delivered at scale. This will include 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. and may also include an impact evaluation. We anticipate that the findings will be useful for the delivery providers, policy makers, as well as sector leaders to support effective programmes to reach more settings and children to improve education outcomes, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and to better understand the considerations for scaling early years programmes.
Previous cohorts of settings receiving Maths Champions are part of an overarching scale up evaluation of the Department for Education’s Accelerator Fund (2021−2025). This evaluation is led by the Behavioural Insights Team and Centre for Evidence and Implementation.