Build confidence teaching secondary maths with High Impact Maths

Whether you are a new or more experienced teacher of maths at Key Stage 3 or Key Stage 4, this programme is designed to support your practice and grow your confidence. This explainer outlines why making improvements to your maths teaching practice is important and what you can gain from High Impact Maths.

Why is maths important?

Maths is a subject with a persistent disadvantage gap that begins in early years and continues to grow. Disadvantaged pupils are more likely to achieve lower grades in maths compared to their more advantaged peers.

Since the start of the pandemic, attainment for all secondary maths pupils has fallen, with an equivalent of over four months of lost learning (Education Policy Institute, 2024). Maths is also a subject which has one of the highest rates of non-specialist teachers, with an increasing number of teachers teaching maths as an additional subject.

Strong maths skills can contribute to improving the academic outcomes and life chances for young people. Our High Impact Maths programme aims to support you as a teacher of maths to improve your maths teaching strategies to make a positive difference to pupils’ learning.

How will this programme benefit you and your school?

High Impact Maths is designed to develop your expertise as a teacher of maths. You will learn practical skills needed to give more effective instruction in the classroom in a way that is specific to maths teaching.

Using evidence-informed approaches and maths teaching strategies that really work, it will help you build and refine your toolkit for planning and delivering effective explanations. These can help you make tangible improvements to your maths teaching practice to improve whole-class understanding of new ideas, vocabulary and concepts.

Short online after-school sessions mean you don’t have to travel or take time away from the classroom to develop your maths teaching knowledge and practice.

You’ll also learn alongside a peer network, allowing you to reflect and discuss matters relevant to your setting and share best practice.

What you will learn on High Impact Maths

High Impact Maths offers the tools and knowledge to help you upskill in a specific, intentional and evidence-informed way. All inputs are focused on supporting high-quality maths instruction (also referred to as explanation, teacher exposition, I-do). In other words, the part of the lesson where you explain a new idea, usually to the whole class, usually using a whiteboard/interactive whiteboard/visualiser.

All of the six modules have been selected as they are particularly impactful in maths teaching and applicable to teaching ideas and content from across the Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 curricula. They are backed by research to help refine your whole-class teaching, modelling and explanations to better support pupils.

During this programme you will:

• Develop your understanding of six high-impact maths teaching strategies.
• Practise applying your knowledge of each strategy to upcoming lessons.
• Engage with exemplification across the Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 maths curricula.
• Reflect on your own practice in the light of evidence-informed strategies.

The strategies will be exemplified across a range of key topics, for example, ratios, linear sequences, 3D shapes, simultaneous equations, fractions and trigonometry. While each strategy will be framed in the context of whole-class teaching, these strategies are equally as valuable when explaining new ideas to smaller groups or one-to-one.

Here's what will be covered across the six sessions:

• Analogies and stories: How can we use analogies and stories to help pupils to see meaning in more abstract or unfamiliar ideas?
• Examples and non-examples: How can we use carefully crafted examples and non-examples to support pupils’ understanding of new terminology, concepts and ideas?
• Worked example pairs: How can we use worked example pairs to provide high-quality modelling?
• Incomplete and incorrect worked examples: How can we extend our use of worked examples to build pupils’ understanding and provide useful scaffolding?
• Part-to-whole approach (atomisation): How can we break down and support pupils to practise constituent parts of a long or complex procedure, and then build back together?
• Representations and tools: How can we use representations to support pupils’ understanding and scaffold thinking as they develop fluency and confidence?

How is this programme delivered?

High Impact Maths is delivered online, outside of classroom hours, so there’s no need to find cover. You’ll complete six live online modules over three terms (18 weeks).

Here’s how you’ll learn:

• One extended online launch session to introduce the programme and our approach.
• Five online, one-hour, after-school sessions.
• Small amount of pre-reading before sessions (around 15 minutes).
• Peer discussion with others on the programme.

Each twilight session will follow a similar structure to allow you to focus on the content and your own practice.

In each online twilight, you will:

• Consider a specific challenge in the context of maths teaching.
• Examine the evidence base behind a useful strategy.
• Engage with a model of the strategy ‘in action’.
• Reflect on success criteria for the planning and delivery of this strategy.
• Reflect on how the strategy fits with current approaches and how it could be implemented in your own classroom.
• Practise planning or delivery in preparation for an upcoming lesson.

High Impact Maths at a glance

• Maths-specific professional development for all teachers of secondary maths.
• Online after-school sessions facilitated live.
• Evidence-informed.
• Bite-sized insights.
• Minimal investment in time and cost.
• No assessment.
• Consistent vocabulary with the Early Career and National Professional Qualifications frameworks to foster a shared understanding among staff.

Is High Impact Maths right for you?

If you’re a secondary school teacher of maths at key stage three or key stage four, then this programme is for you.

Whether maths is your subject specialism, you’re new to teaching maths or you’re planning to teach maths as an additional subject, you can benefit from High Impact Maths.

Here are more examples of who is eligible:

• Secondary maths teachers with two or more years of teaching experience.
• Experienced teachers who are new to teaching maths, whether exclusively or alongside another subject.
• Those who already teach maths alongside another subject.
• Those who wish to change subject specialism to become a maths teacher.

Trust and school-wide maths teacher training

If you are a leader within a school or trust, High Impact Maths could help you to roll out maths professional development across your setting based on supporting your wider maths priorities for the next academic year.

How much does the programme cost?

High Impact Maths costs £400 +VAT per person.

Recruitment for this programme is now closed.

Please complete an enquiry using this enquiry form and we'll be in touch when the next application window opens.

Visit the High Impact Maths programme page to register your interest and find out more.