Grove Road Primary School
Hounslow, UK

In their own words

Our Maths — No Problem! journey

At Grove Road, we live the Maths — No Problem! approach to teaching throughout the entire school in both our maths lessons and our attitudes. We embarked on our journey in 2015 when we were looking for a way to complement and augment our already-strong maths teaching. Our research led us to Maths — No Problem!.

Upon introducing Maths — No Problem!, we found that the concrete-pictorial-abstract (CPA) approach, as well as the other methods that comprise the teaching system were immediately a good fit for our children. Being a school within London with a high level of EAL and SEN learners, we knew that we wanted to promote a practical approach as well as enrich our children with higher-level mathematical thinking. We definitely have a strong emphasis on applying maths across different topics at Grove Road.

To help our community better understand the new program as well as its classroom implementation, we enjoyed having an Maths — No Problem! consultant deliver Inset training, both at the beginning of our journey, and more recently in 2018. We had a large number of parents attend the evening session, hosted by our consultant, where we were able to share our ethos and aims so that parents were able to better help and support their children with mathematics at home.

This gained the support of parents, helping them understand the implementation process and practicality of the methods that we use, as well as the theory and reasoning behind some of the classroom strategies—all of which is very different from their own experiences of primary school.

Maths — No Problem! in our school

From an early age, we’re watching our children become mathematicians who enjoy the level of challenge and exploration that our maths lessons now contain. We currently teach Maths — No Problem! across all year groups as well as apply the fundamentals to our EYFS provision, where we are able to prepare our young learners for the Maths — No Problem! programme in Y1 as well as lay firm foundations.

Our induction programme for new staff members includes training in the Maths — No Problem! approach. Close mentoring by our maths lead and STEM team has seen school-wide consistency improve year-over-year. Moreover, the importance of having skilled practitioners across different phases that can deliver maths teaching and leadership has been maintained by ensuring that ongoing CPD is at the heart of our curriculum. We regularly hold Inset training where staff are able to share good practice, and visiting other classrooms enables teachers to create consistency in how we deliver learning.

The textbooks and workbooks are now part of every lesson in every classroom. We’ve implemented effective journaling both by the children and the teachers when exploring the anchor task; and we have watched it make learning accessible for all. Manipulatives are regularly in use from nursery to Y6, where children are able to both extend and support learning using practical equipment effectively.

As a leadership team we have also attended many of the in-depth training courses that Maths — No Problem! has to offer. We regularly attend the Maths — No Problem! annual conferences and have taken part in the EYFS training to transform our EYFS maths teaching. We have also sent many members of staff to visit Three Bridges Primary in Southall, a school with a similar demographic, to further see how we can develop our deployment of the scheme.

We have seen amazing increases in attainment across the school since embedding Maths — No Problem! into the curriculum. Our maths results have risen steadily year-over-year in KS1 and KS2, most notably in 2018 with 93% of KS2 learners reaching the expected standard, and a further 60% reaching GDS. Our progress for maths in 2018 was the highest in Hounslow, which has meant that many of our local schools are now visiting us to see how we are delivering maths using Maths — No Problem!.

One of our proudest achievements is that children who are part of our ASD centre are now able to access mathematics through the Maths — No Problem! approach despite previously being up to two years behind their peers. Now, they are making phenomenal progress in maths.