Year 7 is a fresh start for fresh faces. But for far too many bright young minds it’s also the start of a shocking decline in interest and achievement in maths.
Our new research shows that a staggering 30,000 high-attaining maths pupils “go missing” every year once they start secondary school.
It’s a big loss in several ways. There’s an estimated £500,000 career premium if a pupil studies maths to an advanced level, and the country loses out, too, with our research also showing that the UK has 16,000 vacancies per year requiring advanced maths skills.
Why do pupils lose interest in maths?
Half of talented maths pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in primary don’t get top GCSE grades. But why?
The biggest factor is perception. Our survey of 2,000 Year 6-9 pupils reveals a fascinating shift in Year 7: high attainers who thought of maths as fun and easy start thinking of it as yawn-inducing and repetitive.
They feel pressure piling on, the fear of not being “good enough” creeps in, and the joy of maths melts away.
We asked these pupils in Year 6-9 how they felt about maths, and looked at the answers split by prior attainment. Two interesting things jumped out.
Firstly, high attainers become more negative about maths in Year 7, with their perceptions of the subject getting sharply worse between Year 6 and Year 7. They are less likely to think maths is fun, more likely to think it’s easy and twice as likely to think it’s boring.
Much of this gets better by Year 9. But by then a significant number of children have fallen behind in maths or decided that it’s not for them. This is particularly the case for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, whose perceptions of maths don’t appear to recover as they get older.
Secondly, we see almost the opposite pattern with low attainers.
These pupils start finding maths more fun and less stressful as they move into Year 7, before their attitudes decline as they move into Year 9.
Time for action
We think our findings highlight the need for urgent action.
This week we’re launching Axiom Maths, a new charity that aims to address this problem. We will support schools to identify and nurture high prior attaining mathematicians, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We will offer schools direct funding to appoint a member of staff as a “maths champion”, alongside a fully funded maths enrichment programme. We’re asking schools to get in touch and express an interest in joining our programme.
By working together we can stop this huge loss of talent and give a better future to the most disadvantaged children in our society.
David Thomas, CEO of Axiom Maths, is a former maths teacher, secondary headteacher and Department for Education adviser
