Delivering a Trust-wide culture of ambition and support with Maths — No Problem!
It completely challenged my expectations. The mathematical thinking and talk I’ve seen from pupils has been phenomenal.
– Helen Bowen
Helen Bowen, Director of Maths at Excelsior Multi Academy Trust, began her role in April 2025 with the goal of further enhancing mathematical outcomes and unlocking her pupils’ potential. Almost all schools across the trust work with Maths — No Problem! and she has noticed the fundamental impact of this — the children sound like real mathematicians.
“It completely challenged my expectations,” says Helen. “The mathematical thinking and talk I’ve seen from pupils has been phenomenal.”
She credits the opportunities for exploration that she says are a genuine strength of the programme, and a lesson structure whose consistency reduces anxiety — in both pupils and teachers — and cognitive overload.
“The focus on language and oracy has been transformational — children can now talk about maths with confidence.”
The success has deepened the resolve of Helen and her colleagues to pursue their aims of narrowing the disadvantage gap between the highest and lowest attainers and to continue to outperform national averages in Ofsted and SATS results.
About Excelsior Multi Academy Trust
Established in November 2012, Excelsior Multi Academy Trust has grown into a significant educational force in the West Midlands, currently overseeing eight primary schools. Seven of these schools are situated within the city of Birmingham, with the eighth, Thorns Primary, extending the Trust’s reach into Dudley. Collectively, the Trust is responsible for the education of approximately 3,000 pupils, providing a specialized, primary-phase focus that emphasises equity and aspirational curriculum design within diverse urban communities.
The Trust serves a demographic with complex needs; across its schools, the proportion of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and those for whom English is an Additional Language (EAL) is significantly higher than the national average, often exceeding 50% in specific settings. While there is no single Ofsted rating for the Trust as a whole, the impact of their "Excelsior Model" is evident in individual school performance. All primary assessment measures for 2025 are above national averages. As of 2026, due to the Trust’s school improvement model, all schools that have been inspected by Ofsted are now ‘Good’ or better, including Parkfield Community School, which maintains an Outstanding designation and serves as a flagship for their mathematics mastery and inclusion strategies.
Maths at Excelsior
In April 2025, the Trust created the Director of Maths role to provide both strategic leadership and hands-on support, ensuring consistency, quality and equity in maths teaching across schools.
Helen’s role is to build a Trust-wide strategy and curriculum coherence, as well as whole-school Continuing Professional Development (CPD). She’s in charge of academy maths reviews, which include learning walks, pupil voice, book looks and subject leader discussions. She also handles targeted support for phases, year groups and individual teachers, as well as co-planning, co-teaching and pedagogical coaching. In addition, she performs moderation and data analysis to identify strengths, risks and priorities.
The majority of schools in the Trust (7 out of 8) use Maths — No Problem! as their core scheme, which provides a shared language and structure while still allowing professional thinking and adaptation by teachers. Maths — No Problem! The eighth school, which is a new joiner, will also transition to this approach in 2026.
Plans are in progress to cascade Maths — No Problem! to the teaching team of that school. The school currently uses another maths mastery programme, however the results reflect that pupils’ full potential is perhaps not being realised, and there’s an appetite from the senior leadership to carefully transition to Maths — No Problem! This will support consistency, coherence and quality across the Trust.
Building a supportive network for maths leads
Excelsior has experienced many benefits by using Maths — No Problem! across the whole Trust. For example, it provides opportunities for maths leads to come together to compare practice, share experience, anticipate challenges and support one another.
“Having Maths — No Problem! has certainly given us an opportunity for consistency across the schools,” says Helen. “We can plan for whole MAT initiatives and work on particular areas together.”
This has also enabled Helen to identify common areas of need across schools, providing an opportunity for teachers to share knowledge and expertise. For example, Helen mentioned using this approach to improve “stretch and challenge.”
“We’ve done a lot of work together about how you can use simple question stems within Maths — No Problem! to get children to think about ‘What if?’ or ‘What do we notice?’ and encouraging children to pattern spot, which enables them to make generalisations.” Helen and her team of Maths Leads in each school have been particularly inspired by the programme’s exploration first teaching.
A revolution in equity and access
Excelsior Multi Academy Trust operates schools within communities facing significant challenges, including high levels of deprivation, large EAL populations and specialised SEND requirements. To ensure high-quality provision for every learner regardless of their starting point, the Trust established an ambitious, pragmatic vision for maths mastery. This commitment to equity is already yielding remarkable results: one inner-city Birmingham school serving an area of extreme deprivation recently achieved an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted rating, with 89% of pupils reaching expected standards or above in their 2025 End of KS2 Mathematics SATs — well above the 74% national benchmark. Similarly, Thorns Primary, where 42% of pupils are registered as disadvantaged, saw End of KS1 SATs scores climb to 80%, marking a significant improvement over historic outcomes.
The success of the Trust’s mission is rooted in the consistency and accessibility of the Maths — No Problem! programme. By using a Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract (CPA) approach, the curriculum reduces the heavy reliance on language that can often hinder disadvantaged or EAL learners.
“The maths is accessible for disadvantaged children because it’s based on the CPA approach,” explains Kate Whyatt, Assistant Head Teacher at Thorns Primary. “It’s not relying completely on language; it’s so visual and so practical.”
This visual foundation, combined with reliable classroom routines and sentence stems, has sparked a surge in oracy, allowing pupils to become articulate, confident mathematicians.
“Oracy is high; students are becoming very articulate in maths, which is increasing their enjoyment, especially for those pupils from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds,” says Helen.
To further bridge the disadvantage gap, the Trust invests heavily in teacher empowerment and professional development. Recent initiatives include Trust-wide inset days focused on making lessons fully relatable to every child, alongside ongoing peer support and CPD. By providing core materials and clear representations, the programme allows teachers to move away from resource-heavy planning and focus instead on the individual needs of the child.
“The consistent structure really matters,” says Helen. “Children know how their maths lesson works and what to expect — there are no surprises — and they really thrive with that.”
Working together for ensure future success
Excelsior is committed to an upward trajectory, with a clear focus on refining the quality of maths instruction across all its schools. By maintaining high fidelity to the Maths — No Problem! scheme, the Trust aims to support each institution at its specific stage of the journey, whether they are established users or just beginning to embed the approach.
This long-term strategy is designed to move outcomes well beyond national averages. As Kate explains: “Our aim is to deliver high-quality lessons across the school to get the best outcomes we possibly can. We want to be better than the national score and we are moving in that direction.”
A key component of this future vision is the continued development of subject knowledge and professional expertise among staff. By fostering a culture of ongoing CPD and peer support, the Trust ensures that teachers feel equipped to deliver ambitious, high-impact lessons. This consistency is about more than just test scores; it is about identity and aspiration.
Ayshah Nazir, Assistant Headteacher at Colmers Farm Primary School, notes that the school is going from strength to strength: “This isn’t only about outcomes; it’s about shifting attitudes so disadvantaged pupils feel they belong in high-achievement spaces.”
Looking ahead, the Trust also plans to deepen its engagement with parents and families, ensuring that the transformation in maths extends from the classroom into the home. By providing a stable, predictable environment where there are “no surprises,” the Trust is creating a space where all children can thrive. As the partnership with Maths — No Problem! evolves, the goal remains steadfast: to provide every child with the tools and confidence to succeed in an increasingly complex world.
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