The Centres for Excellence in Maths (CfEM) programme

Project information

Background

Student outcomes in mathematics are of increasing importance to individuals, colleges and society as successive governments seek to ensure that the UK workforce has sufficient quantitative skills for an increasingly data-driven and technology-rich future. Research shows that getting a good grade in GCSE maths significantly affects someone’s earning over their lifetime.

There is also a growing expectation that young people continue their mathematics education post-16 and the condition of funding for FE colleges requires all students who fell short of a grade 4 GCSE at 16 to retake or work towards retaking the examination. The number of GCSE mathematics resit students has therefore grown significantly in recent years yet many students have difficulties in improving their grades. 

Centres for Excellence in Mathematics programme

The DfE funded the Centres for Excellence in Mathematics (CfEM) programme (2018–2023) to address concerns in this area. The programme established 21 Centres for Excellence, geographically spread across England. The DfE has also commissioned a delivery partner coordinated by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF). Further details of the programme can be found on the EFT website. 

The Centre for Research in Mathematics Education (CRME) had a central role in the programme, being responsible for an ambitious programme of research. The research comprised two main strands:

• Running large-scale interventions to trial approaches to teaching mathematics
• Establishing a model for, and working with colleges to adopt, a whole college approach to mathematics provision

CRME also provided expert advice to develop handbooks and materials for the sector, and had significant input into an extensive programme of teacher professional development.  

Randomised controlled trial

During 2021-22 the research team undertook a large-scale randomised controlled trial of their design of a programme for Teaching for Mastery.  The outcomes of this trial suggest that the programme leads to increased attainment as measured by marks in GCSE assessment. The three-armed randomised controlled trial detected improved outcomes equivalent to one month of additional learning for students taught by teachers who had taken part in the most intensive intervention programme. This increased to two months of additional learning for the most deprived students (as measured by free school meals uptake). 

Materials used in the Nottingham designed intervention can be found on the ETF website. 

Latest

The report of this research is now available.

Whole College Approach project

The Whole College Approach (WCA) project began in April 2021 and was informed by the Nuffield-funded Mathematics in Further Education Colleges (MiFEeC) project.

An initial group of 10 FE colleges completed a pilot (May 2021–July 2022) before further funding was made available to continue the programme. An additional six colleges joined the programme in May 2022.

The WCA highlights the importance of strategic thinking with appropriate consideration of contextual differences between colleges. It prioritises the formation of a cross-college team with representation from different areas of the college and levels of management and/or teaching, so that multiple perspectives can be considered. The WCA is based on key ideas about systems thinking, organisational learning and complex change in large organisations such as FE colleges.