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Challenges Schools Face in Helping Each Child Reach Their Full Potential in Maths

Many children continue to leave primary and secondary schools “hating maths” and feeling confused by it, or unchallenged to reach their true potential. In this section you will see some of the reasons for this and how some of these challenges can be addressed.

• 4 year gap in abilities
• Each child has their own unique maths profile
• What an inspiring Teacher Can Do
• How Can These Challenges Be Addressed?

4 year gap in abilities

At Whizz Education, having worked with hundreds of schools over several years in areas such as the UK, US, Dubai and India, it has been observed that any mixed ability class will typically have a 4 year gap in maths ability between the least able and most able student. A 4 year gap! How is a teacher supposed to cover that in a 45 minute lesson?

This year 4 class has a maths age range of 4 years.

Each child has their own unique maths profile

To add to a teacher’s challenges, any given child’s ability is very likely to vary across the different maths topics, eg an 8 year old may find that she has a maths age of 8.5 in addition, but only 7.25 in fractions or worded problems. Each child really has their own, often unique, maths profile, often with a 2 year gap in ability between their best and worst maths topics. This is why it is so difficult for teachers in school to cater for each child’s individual needs – because they are all so different!

It is quite typical to see a two year gap
between a child’s best and worst maths topics.

Combined with classes containing students with a 4 year gap in overall maths ability, you can begin to see why it is virtually impossible for a teacher to cater to each child’s individual needs in a typical class scenario. There is simply not enough time to cater to each child’s needs in a whole class scenario, no matter how experienced the teacher is.

What an inspiring Teacher Can Do

Realistically, the best a teacher can do is to deliver the curriculum to the mid range of ability and to do so in an inspiring enough way that as many students as possible seek to fill in their own gaps through asking questions, or gaining help from elsewhere. In practice, this is not always viable and many children are left struggling and behind, or the gifted and talented are unchallenged and lose interest in the subject.

How Can These Challenges Be Addressed?

Whizz Education has developed a proven ability to work with schools to raise standards in maths.
In simple terms this is achieved by:

1. Providing personalised tutoring for individual students. Whizz Education is able to do this in an affordable way by allowing students to log in, online, to Maths-Whizz Tutoring Plus, the market leading simulated online tutoring service in maths.
2. Providing resources for whole class teaching which support teachers to deliver educationally powerful lessons that communicate maths to students in an engaging way.
3. Providing advice to schools on best practice and professional development/training to teachers so they feel confident in overseeing implementation to achieve the desired results. Best practices are simple to understand and integrate into the practicalities of school life.
4. Where appropriate, supporting schools to engage parents to encourage home use of the Maths-Whizz tutoring service, improving home school links and appropriate parental support to a child’s learning.

Learn more about Maths-Whizz Tutoring Plus for Schools

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