These summaries are of research papers presented at the Day Conference on June 2025 at the University of Glasgow. Full papers are available at http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/publications/proceedings-of-day-conference.
Content
Max Aantjes
University of Cambridge
In an increasingly diverse field, mathematics education researchers may fail to take advantage of certain theoretical developments relevant to their analyses. Accordingly, it is useful to report surprising cases where some seemingly relevant theoretical development is absent from a given literature. Rather than seeing such cases as simple oversight, Foucault’s analyses of power and knowledge indicate such surprising absences may be grounded in certain regimes of truth. This suggests a detailed literature review may be needed to capture how the absence in question came about and how it can be resolved. In this paper, I argue that this review approach seems poorly reflected in existing literature review typologies, and that a discussion about literature reviews starting from surprising theoretical absences is needed. For this purpose, I provide a theoretical grounding for such reviews drawing on Foucault, develop a tentative methodological framework, and explore examples where such reviews seem useful.
Fay Baldry, Ben Harvey-Ashenhurst, Alison Godfrey, Farhat Syyeda
University of Leicester
In England, over the past 10 years, government funding of professional development has focused on one particular approach to the teaching of mathematics, namely ‘Teaching for Mastery’ (TfM). In order to understand the influence of this approach in relation to other curriculum drivers, this study explores professional learning in three primary schools. Interviews with 13 teachers were combined with lesson observations, and interviews with the maths leads and small groups of students. Key factors that led to high levels of self-efficacy in terms of curriculum design were identified, which included leadership of change, cooperative environments, feedback for teachers and stable staffing. These formed feedback loops for curriculum change to become incremental and self-sustaining. For these schools, engagement in the government promoted discourse of fidelity to TfM was optional, with their own perceptions of practice the key drivers for teacher learning.
Mathematical Journalling: reframing Pedagogy in Scotland through Oracy, Reflection and Learner Voice
Holly Drummond and Kirsten Fenton
ESMS Junior School, Edinburgh
This article explores the potential of mathematical journalling to transform mathematics education in Scottish primary schools by addressing both declining attainment and the systemic neglect of oracy. Within the context of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), oracy remains underdeveloped, with limited guidance or progression models. We argue that journalling offers a research-informed, equitable, and metacognitive pedagogy that can bridge this gap. Drawing on practitioner experience and educational theory, we illustrate how structured journalling practices can enhance learners’ mathematical reasoning, support disciplinary literacy, and create inclusive spaces for reflection and learner voice. By embedding sentence stems, reflective cycles, and dialogic routines, journalling enables learners to externalise their thinking, build confidence, and develop a positive mathematical identity. This article contends that journalling is not simply a teaching tool but a mindset shift – one that empowers learners to understand, explain, and own their mathematical learning in ways that are deeply aligned with Scotland’s educational values and ambitions.
Arya Fu, Chin Khang Lee
Shanghai Experimental Foreign Language School
This study aims to evaluate the potential of ChatGPT-4o in mathematics competition teaching. By conducting a preliminary test of AI’s analytical ability, personalized guidance ability, and learning plan generation ability, we explore its feasibility and limitations in teacher preparation, student self-study, and competition preparation. Experimental methods and text analysis methods were adopted to analyze ChatGPT-4o’s answers to American mathematics competition questions under different prompts. It was found that ChatGPT-4o had a low accuracy rate when solving problems without prompts and lacked effectiveness in solving geometry problems, but it also showed the ability to provide effective personalized guidance in problem classification and knowledge point summary.
Nayanatara Ruth Gautham
University of Bristol
In this paper, I examine how three students from India, aged 16 to 18, reason through the open-ended art gallery mathematical problem. This study looked at how students created abstractions through vertical reorganisation. Generalisations made by students were classified as empirical and theoretical, and the generalisations based on schema were classified as expansive, reconstructive and disjunctive. Students initially made a disjunctive generalisation, that only one guard would be needed, followed by reconstructive generalisations as they tried more examples of different shapes of art galleries. Vertical reorganisation was also observed as students created and worked on new conjectures. The students primarily used theoretical generalisations and were able to justify their claims. While working on the problem, participants created conjectures related to blind spots and the upper limit of the number of guards required.
TIMSS 2023 data adding to the mathematics and gender jigsaw in England
Jennie Golding and David Wilkinson
University College London
Post-16 participation in mathematics in England has for many years been gendered in favour of boys, despite several targeted interventions. Recent performance by gender has become near gender-equal, including in international large-scale assessments. TIMSS 2023 exposed a large opening-up of the performance gender gap. While learners in the majority of participating countries showed year 9 (Grade 8) boys’ performance on average exceeding girls’, England’s was the biggest such gap across all countries. In this paper we explore analysis of wider TIMSS data as it relates to this emerging gap, and contextualise that within other England data. We show that in England, distinctively gendered patterns of attitudes and aspirations have emerged by year 5 (Grade 4) and analyse possible reasons. We scope key knowledge around ways policy actors and/or teachers might address identified issues, and identify existing gaps in relevant knowledge.
Conscientisation and codesign in secondary maths
Jane Goodland1, Karen, Shannon and John2
1University of Manchester
2These are the pseudonyms of the students who collaborated on this paper
We are students and a teacher from a maths class at a secondary school and we have been working on a research study together over the last year where the teacher and students work together to make changes to lessons. Our report is going to look a bit different to normal conference papers because we are writing it together. We show you some of our ideas and explain how we came up with them. This includes conscientisation (exploring and understanding problems) and codesign (making changes together). We think that maths can be learned in different ways and it is important to discuss our ideas and experiences.
Play, talk, think: Fostering mathematical reasoning in reception classrooms.
Helen Gormley
University of Reading
This report forms part of a PhD research study, exploring how mathematical reasoning (MR) can be developed in young children at the start of their formal mathematics education. Existing MR literature typically focuses on older children, or pre-school settings. The study addresses the research gap by exploring how reception teachers support MR within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in primary schools. This report examines how teachers plan for MR, the dialogic strategies they use in adult-child interactions during purposeful play, and how they encourage children to express their reasoning. Using a multiple case study methodology, data from planning documents and interviews were analysed, using a researcher-developed framework. Early findings suggest that questioning, modelling, and scaffolding are key strategies used by teachers to promote MR. The study proposes a broader understanding of MR, reflecting how young children mathematise everyday experiences, with implications for practice, curriculum, and teacher education.
Mathematics teacher educators as researchers: creative approaches to elicit experience narratives
Gwen Ineson1 and Gill Adams2
1Brunel University London, 2Sheffield Hallam University
Motivations to enter academia from professions are varied, with teaching responsibilities often prioritised initially. In education, teaching on initial teacher education (ITE) courses that are increasingly subject to regulation direct efforts towards meeting new statutory requirements, impacting time for research. In this exploratory study, we are interested in whether, if so how, teacher educators develop as researchers – and in what, if anything, is different for mathematics educators. To explore experiences, we use an embodied inquiry approach, inviting participants to share visual responses to prompts sent in advance. This enabled participants to delve into their recollections of developing their research, to elicit what often is left hidden, forgotten or lost. Participants chose a variety of approaches to share stories. This multimodal approach supports our attempt to work holistically to “make meaning” with participants, exploring shifting and evolving identities. In this workshop report, we share this work in progress and invite comments.
The evolution of one stem sentence in a primary mathematics fractions lesson/
Tazreen Kassim-Lowe
University of Nottingham
Stem sentences (speaking scaffolds) are used in many mathematics lessons in England but research on their effectiveness is lacking. Using Anna Sfard’s understanding of commognition, this article presents discourse analysis on the use of one stem sentence in a fractions lesson with 10- to 11-year-olds. Considering words, visual mediators, routines and endorsed narratives, analysis is presented of an observed classroom episode involving the stem sentence: ‘Only the numerator is divided by the integer’. The teacher uses the stem sentence, adjacent mediating tools and learners’ utterances to construct, substantiate and recall the mathematical narrative that the stem sentence endorses. This example demonstrates how stem sentences can feature in classroom routines beyond the ritualized practice of verbal repetition they are sometimes associated with.
Integrating Climate Change into Mathematics Education: Challenges and Opportunities
Hui-Chuan Li
Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, UK
Climate change has been recognised as a global emergency, highlighting the growing need to integrate sustainability into education to prepare future generations for this crisis. In recent year, with the increasing urgency of addressing climate change, educators are seeking ways to make their teaching more relevant to global sustainability issues. However, research on how mathematics education can incorporate climate change topics remains limited, making this study a timely and crucial contribution. The present study explores the integration of climate change into secondary mathematics education, examining both its potential and challenges. It investigates how mathematical concepts can equip students with the skills to interpret climate-related data, understand trends, and make informed predictions about future environmental changes. By investigating teacher and student experiences with climate-integrated mathematics lessons, it sheds light on both the opportunities and barriers in incorporating climate change discussions into mathematics education, offering insights for curriculum design and pedagogical practice.
Laura Logan
King’s College London
This study identifies factors influencing post-compulsory STEM participation, including in mathematics, in Scottish secondary schools. Prior research suggests that gender is a pervasive contributing factor. The significance of this, in conjunction with other factors, is therefore explored in the Scottish context. This is done in two phases. Phase One analyses widespread trends in SQA data spanning from 1986 to 2023, while Phase Two uses questionnaires and interviews from students to investigate individuals’ motivations for STEM participation. Data shows falling STEM participation, except in biology, while the proportion of females in male dominated STEM spaces shows limited improvement. Furthermore, the exceptional attainment of those who cross the gendered lines of STEM participation is significant. Phase Two attempts to understand why this may be, with respect to gender, career ambitions, teacher-pupil relationships and self-efficacy, however there is scope for considerable further research to explain these phenomena in Scotland.
Helen Martin and Jean-Baptiste Gramain
University of Aberdeen
Traditionally, assessments in mathematics are graded numerically, reinforcing beliefs many students and teachers have that the ‘right’ answer should receive full marks irrespective of its actual quality. Merely translating percentages into alphanumeric grades may accentuate this disconnection between quality of a response and grade misguiding efforts of our students. While there’s research on redesigning assessments and enhancing feedback in higher education, there’s less attention to qualitative grading in science disciplines like mathematics. This project investigates whether qualitative grading positively affects students’ ‘locus of attention’ by engaging with co-creation of criteria, focussing on essential features and qualities of mathematical solutions. Initial findings indicate qualitative grading can indeed be implemented in mathematics and may even be more effective and efficient than traditional marking; co-creation of criteria can stimulate longer-term reflection about qualities of mathematical work; and attention shifts from “where did I lose the mark?” to “how can I improve my response?”.
Sketching Community Mathematics: a mapping of informal practices.
Charlotte Mégrourèche, Laura Black, Sky Herington, Alejandra Vincente Colmenares, Kate O’Brien, Keisha Thompson, Edda Sant
University of Manchester
Our Very Local Maths project (https://verylocalmaths.org.uk) explores how mathematics education might be supported outside formal spaces. We introduce the term community mathematics, inspired by the British Community Arts Movement (1960s-1980s), which challenged cultural exclusion and authority by emphasising collaborative creation, participation and cultural democracy. In this project, we ask what community mathematics might mean: what forms it could take, how it could be supported and how it could respond to the exclusions widely documented in school mathematics, particularly for young people in marginalised communities. To explore this, we developed two strands of work. First, we formed a group of young community mathematicians (13-16), running monthly interdisciplinary workshops in a local community centre in Manchester. Second, we carried out a UK-wide festival review mapping platforms where young people engage with mathematics outside of schools. In this communication we present these two strands which offer an initial sketch of community mathematics.
Exploring Primary Teachers’ Notions of Big Ideas in Statistics: Insights from Maharashtra, India
Jioo Nimkar, Jenni Ingram
University of Oxford
This study investigates primary mathematics teachers’ statistical content knowledge (CK) in Maharashtra, India, using a multiple-choice survey questionnaire aligned with five key statistical concepts based on the statistical inquiry cycle. A total of 251 teachers across the state participated in the survey. Findings indicate low overall performance, with a mean score of 4.87 (SD = 2.08) out of a possible 12 marks. There were particular difficulties in formulating investigable questions and describing data. No significant differences were observed based on teaching experience, school type, or language of instruction, except that postgraduate qualifications were associated with slightly higher scores compared to teachers with only undergraduate degrees. Confidence levels of teachers, measured through a Likert scale, did not align with actual performance on the questionnaire, suggesting limited teacher awareness of knowledge gaps. The study aims to establish a baseline for future teacher professional development in statistics.
Rita Pescetelli
Institute of Education – University College London
This paper explores the diverse experiences of students with ADHD symptoms when engaging
Recognising the heterogeneity of ADHD is fundamental to a socially just mathematics education. This paper presents the initial findings of an exploratory multiple case study investigating how students with ADHD symptoms experience cognitive and attentional demands when solving GCSE mathematics word problems. Clinical interviews and observations were conducted with five students aged 12–16 an attending an alternative provision in England. Preliminary reflexive thematic analysis identified key challenges, including difficulties with mathematical language and inability to articulate mathematical reasoning. Findings emphasise the diverse cognitive and emotional profiles within this group, highlighting the inadequacy of a “one-size-fits-all” approach to mathematics learning and assessment. Grounded in a social justice paradigm, this small-scale exploratory qualitative study aimed to emphasise further the fundamental right of all students to equitable access to quality education, regardless of neurodiversity.
Embedding Teaching for Mastery in Secondary Schools
Emma Rempe-Gillen1, Andy Ash2, Nicki Ashton2, Aidan Gollaglee2 and Helen Madeley2
1Sheffield Hallam University, 2National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics
This paper draws from a wider research project exploring Teaching for Mastery in secondary schools in England. The research aims to understand more about how Teaching for Mastery becomes embedded within mathematics departments and school networks. Here we report some initial findings and emerging themes from school visits, interviews, pupil voice and observations across four secondary schools. We examine how the Teaching for Mastery approach is understood by mathematics teachers and senior school leaders; how teachers utilise the mastery approach in their classroom practice; the role and impact of Maths Hubs; and how Teaching for Mastery reaches beyond the Mastery Specialist. The successes and challenges experienced by teachers and schools are discussed, and we identify the conditions which enable embedding Teaching for Mastery in secondary schools, reflecting on how implementation can be facilitated.
“Were you counting?”, “No!”: awareness of number structure in Teaching for Mastery in England
Jennifer Shearman1, Vivien Townsend1, Alf Coles2
National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics1, University of Bristol2
We report on emerging findings from a research project looking at the NCETM’s Primary Teaching for Mastery (TfM) training, how this is translated into lessons, and what students show they know. We took video recordings of training in two centres and followed up with video recordings of lessons with six teachers, and interviews with students from each classroom. We have been interested to find elements of practice or awareness which are observable in actions across the three levels: children, teachers, teacher trainers; this is something few past studies have done. The theme we report on here is “awareness of number structure”. While not wanting to draw causal links, we argue that a focus on number structure potentially represents a significant shift in practice in primary schools. We draw out implications for the TfM programme and future research.
Multicolour Maths: using colour, shape and art to aid understanding number
Brook Tate
I am carrying out ongoing development and evaluation of a visual method of teaching mathematics called Multicolour Maths. The method uses ten colours and simple shapes to represent mathematic sentences. This study consists of qualitative and anecdotal data from observations I have made in workshops with primary and secondary students and adults in the UK, India and Nepal. I draw on ‘dual code theory’ and ‘picture superiority effect’ (Clark & Pavio, 1991, Nelson, Reed & Walling, 1976) which suggests memory is improved when images are connected to information as opposed to using text alone. I offer a brief overview of how the method works along with analysis of a selection of artworks created by students. I also present my own personal experience overcoming maths anxiety by engaging with mathematics as a visual artform.