The age of the maths experts...

The Williams Review of Maths has finally been published, and the Government have adopted its proposals. It has investigated ways to improve primary maths teaching. The review recommends:

• Every primary to have a specialist maths teacher within 10 years, except some small schools, where they may be shared.
• Teachers to be paid £8000 over five years to train through summer schools and part-time study.
• Support for catch-up intervention programmes in Year 2, but schools to decide if this is done individually or in small groups.
• Review of primary teaching frameworks to make them more user-friendly.
• Government to increase numbers of early years teachers who are graduates.
• More emphasis on time and volume in the early years curriculum.
• Primary national curriculum should be broadly unchanged. But the review wants more emphasis on oral and mental mathematics.
• The Government to produce guidance on how early years staff can encourage children to express mathematical ideas on paper.