Post-16 Mathematics

Research published by the Nuffield Foundation in 2010 showed that levels of participation in maths education post-16 in England were significantly lower than in other developed countries, and reports from the Advisory Committee for Mathematics Education in 2011 highlighted the need for more young people to learn maths to a higher level in order to meet the needs of industry and higher education.

To increase the level of participation, a new curriculum was needed, suitable for students who have achieved a standard pass in GCSE Mathematics.

Our work included the following aspects:

• Consulting with higher education, employer organisations, learned societies and professional bodies across a range of disciplines and an advisory group of experts to develop a suitable curriculum. The curriculum was based on students engaging with realistic problems and developing skills of analysing problems and thinking flexibly to solve them. Careful consideration was given to the kinds of problems which would be appropriate for the students to work on, with a particular emphasis on the kinds of situations which might come up in a conversation with friends.
• Developing teaching and learning resources which were trialled in schools and colleges. The purpose of this trialling was to refine the resources to ensure that they worked as intended and were engaging to the target audience.
• Developing and trialling a suitable assessment methodology to enable the curriculum to be assessed in a way that encourages the development of transferable mathematical and statistical problem-solving skills. Such problem-solving skills are highly valued by higher education and employers.
• Developing a professional development programme to introduce teachers to teaching starting from a context and steering discussions to maximise learning. These approaches were also being used in Japan and in the Netherlands. Professor Gowers stressed the importance of this in his blog.