An announcement by prime minister Rishi Sunak that a group of advisers will look into the core maths content taught in schools is no bad thing.
However, to ensure this work has real value, the group must ensure they focus as much on the reason why so many people suffer from maths anxiety.
Sunak himself essentially acknowledged this when he said there is widespread “cultural sense that it’s OK to be bad at maths” - a view that stems from a fear of maths and the public humiliation that can be experienced when making errors in maths.
Overlooking the big issue
Sadly, though, this has been repeatedly overlooked in reviews of maths teaching.
For example, a recent group of advisers to the Commons Education Select Committee acknowledged that many students experience “alienation and disengagement” but did not mention maths anxiety and the need to address this and ensure psychological safety when learning mathematics.
Perhaps this is not surprising. In 2016, Dr Ann Dowker and colleagues reviewed what we have learned and done about maths anxiety since it was first written about over 60 years and although they acknowledged much has improved, much remains to be done.
“There needs to be more investigation of the role of pressures by parents and teachers for school achievement,” they said.
“This is especially true in view of the increasing importance of both mathematics as such and of academic qualifications in today’s society; and in view of the increasing concern of governments in several countries about raising academic standards.”
To ignore this vital and longstanding issue would be negligent and so those on this new review board must ensure they use this opportunity to consider this issue, as well as how maths is taught and how we can avoid issues of anxiety among learners.
How are we teaching the content?
This should involve asking if the content being taught is accessible, linked, inclusive, valuable and engaging (ALIVE). What’s more, is the content linked to students’ daily lives and the things they already know and are interested in? Does the teaching include everyone?
Does the teacher understand how to relate the maths so students understand the personal value of each topic? Will fears of humiliation and exclusion be addressed?
The role of teachers in this must also be considered - perhaps most importantly by ensuring they truly understand that, for many, maths is an anxiety-inducing subject in the way many other subjects are not.
For example, the Dowker paper found that 30 per cent of the UK apprentice population experienced maths anxiety. So, teachers have to realise that potentially as many as one in every three children are feeling this way about maths before they even enter the classroom.
Furthermore, while the need to recruit more maths teachers to deliver on the maths-to-18 pledge may sound logical, it could make the problem worse; it can often be the case that skilled maths teachers are not always best able to empathise with scared maths learners and the issues they face.
New types of engagement
One simple, inexpensive solution could be for adults who use maths in their everyday lives, such as journalists, geographers, psychologists or scientists, to be recruited as a new type of maths teacher.
A two-year postgraduate certificate in education for adults without a mathematics degree, which I was an external examiner for, was highly successful at Birmingham University - until it was shut down.
And perhaps we need a new form of maths assessment that would remove the all-or-nothing mindset of exams, which only heightens maths anxiety.
For example, Sam Sims, the chief executive of National Numeracy, has suggested a numeracy qualification that would be “more like a driving test or ‘passport-style certification’, which everybody could pass and which gives young people more confidence” could work well.
Of course, we also need to ensure learners themselves genuinely feel confident with maths - perhaps by offering the ability to develop mathematical resilience, the ability to persevere in the face of possible humiliation and exclusion.
An example is the Coaching for Mathematical Resilience Course developed at the University of Warwick and being studied by colleagues from Brazil and South Africa, and a similar course being developed by Turkish members of the Mathematical Resilience Network.
None of this is going to change the perception of maths overnight, but we need to start to change the narrative around maths so that anxiety does not hold learners back and, instead, we create “a population of mathematically competent individuals, who might otherwise go undiscovered”.
Sue Johnston-Wilder is an associate professor of mathematics education at the University of Warwick and co-founder of the international Mathematical Resilience Network. Telma Para is the leader of the Brazilian branch and funded by the CNPq [National Council for Scientific and Technological Development] to Professor Johnston-Wilder’s research.
