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21 colleges chosen as maths centres for excellence

21 colleges chosen as maths centres for excellence

Damian Hinds tells Conservative Party conference that more must be done to raise maths attainment

2nd October 2018, 4:27pm

The government has named the 21 colleges that will be the first to establish maths centres for excellence.

The new centres were first announced in the 2017 industrial strategy and in response to Sir Adrian Smith’s review of post-16 maths education, which recommended improving basic maths for people over the age of 16.

The centres named today will aim to improve the quality of basic maths provision for low-attaining young people over the age of 16, and the chosen colleges are spread across the country to ensure that there is at least one in every region of England.

Their other objectives will be to design new and improved teaching approaches, develop high-quality teaching resources, build teachers’ skills and spread best practice across the country through maths networks.

Standards are rising

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference this afternoon, education secretary Damian Hinds said many schools and colleges now excelled at teaching maths and English. He added that standards were therefore rising with more 11-year-olds meeting the required standards in reading and writing, and more teenagers achieving a standard GCSE maths pass before leaving education.

“However, there is more to do,” he said, explaining that the new centres for excellence would “test and share new ways to teach students who are re-sitting their maths GCSE”.