Internationally, schools with small numbers of children and constrained funding are not able to group the children in classes based on their age. Rather, the children are combined into larger 'mixed-age' classes. Schools and teachers manage this situation in different ways, for example by teaching the class as two or more separate age-based groups…

This paper seeks to identify significant trends in mathematics curricula and teaching approaches in two education systems: the United States (a highly decentralised education system) and England (a highly centralised education system), with focus on 16-to-19-year-olds. The paper adopts a two-fold perspective: an historical overview, and comparison…

This article draws on critical theories and perspectives on mathematics education to explain the tendency of mathematics teaching worldwide to remain focused on developing procedural understanding, despite repeated calls from the mathematics education community for a more relevant and engaging curriculum. It highlights how conventional approaches…

The formation of teachers' professional practice has been discussed in relation to a wide variety of influences, with government prescription of practice often criticised as oppressing professional agency. Set within an ethnographic study within one English primary school, this paper explores the role of intertextuality in the form of intertextual…

This paper reports on the reflections of twenty-one primary preservice teachers following a microteaching experience that focused on the use of talk and collaborative group work, as part of a primary mathematics specialist education programme. Based on the didactic strategies of exploratory talk, the experience intended to develop knowledge for…

School readiness is a dominant discourse in current policy agendas in UK and international contexts, fulfilling a range of goals such as providing children with the 'best start in life' by breaking the cycle of poverty, and preparing children for formal learning in compulsory education. Focussing on the school readiness agenda in England, this…

This article explores one female student teacher's experiences of learning to teach mathematics. Data included weekly emails and an interview through which Kelly expressed her struggle to be recognised as mathematical and to be heard in pedagogical relationships within a subject that is discursively aligned with masculinity. Analysis drew on…

This document presents a review of evidence commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation to inform the guidance document "Improving Mathematics in Key Stages Two and Three" (Education Endowment Foundation, 2017). The review draws on a substantial parallel study by the same research team, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which…

This guidance report focuses on the teaching of mathematics to pupils in Key Stages 2 and 3. It is not intended to provide a comprehensive guide to mathematics teaching. We have made recommendations where there are research findings that schools can use to make a significant difference to pupils' learning, and have focused on the questions that…

The nineteenth century has been characterised as a period in which mathematics proper acquired a disciplinary and institutional autonomy. This article explores the intertwining of three intersecting worlds of the history of mathematics inasmuch as it engages with historicising the pursuit of novel mathematics, the history of disciplines and, more…

"The Effectiveness of Mathematics Teaching in Primary Schools: Lessons from England and China" provides a unique insight into the mathematics classrooms of these two countries and arrives at a time when the world is eager to know how Chinese learners consistently excel at learning mathematics and other core subjects. Showcasing the kinds…

This paper reports on classroom observations of senior high school mathematics lessons with a focus on the use of digital technology. The observations were of teachers enrolled in an in-service course, Teaching Advanced Mathematics. The paper reports selected results and comments on: software that was observed to have been used; the use (or not)…

In this paper we present analyses of three textbooks currently used in the teaching of mathematics to year-one children in England. One is an established English-authored textbook, while the others are Singaporean-authored imports promoted by government as solutions to perceptions of systemic failure. Every task in each textbook was coded against…

South Asian approaches to teaching mathematics have been influential globally and are entangled with mastery approaches. This study investigates changing strategies and beliefs of Primary School teachers in England as they engage with a sustained curriculum development project. The teachers were working with a commercially available text book…

The curriculum resources used for teaching secondary mathematics vary considerably from school to school. Some schools base their teaching largely on a single published scheme, while others design their own schemes of learning, curating their resources from a range of (often free) online sources. Both approaches seem problematic from the…