The disadvantage gap in Year 6 pupils’ experience of maths
Last year we surveyed two thousand pupils in Years 6 to 9 to find out more about their experience of maths in Key Stage 3. We found attitudes to maths got worse between Year 6…
Maths education in England: Attainment and attitudes
Axiom Maths have published our first report on the state of maths education in England. The report pulls together a comprehensive set of attainment data to paint an holistic picture of performance, and adds detailed…
Why oracy is a good thing for learning maths
This post first appeared in TES magazine here. It is reproduced with their permission. Everyone’s talking about oracy. As a maths teacher who has weathered numerous whole-school literacy initiatives – you know, the kind where you’re…
Relevance is overrated
What is the role of “relevance” in motivating pupils to enjoy maths? We often hear arguments that pupil motivation to learn maths would be better if maths were made more relevant. This blog argues that…
Teachers can’t agree on what good problem-solving is
This academic year we launched a research project into maths assessment with No More Marking. Part of this project consisted of two relatively open-ended maths problems designed to expose pupils’ mathematical reasoning. These were marked…
How friendship groups change in Year 7
In our last blog we talked about how half of disadvantaged pupils who were top attainers in maths at eleven are no longer top attainers by sixteen, and that the evidence points to a drop…
Why Year 7s don’t like maths
Half of disadvantaged pupils who are top attainers in maths at the end of Year 6 don’t go on to get a Grade 7 or higher at GCSE. Here at Axiom Maths we exist to…
Why we’re called Axiom Maths
In mathematics, an axiom is a statement that is taken to be true, often self-evidently so, from which one can build further argument. They are the simple but powerful truths from which great arguments and…