Effective teachers of numeracy

published:  April 2003

What factors help to make some teachers of numeracy more effective than others?

Askew, M., M. Brown, V. Rhodes, D. Johnson and D. Wiliam. Effective Teachers of Numeracy. London: King’s College London, 1997.

The study featured in this TLA research summary set out to identify and describe the characteristics of effective teachers of numeracy. It took place before and during the introduction of the National Numeracy Strategy.

The researchers were asked to feed back their findings into the development work for the strategy. They explored teachers' beliefs, knowledge and understanding as well as their teaching practice. They found that developing a rich network of connections between different mathematical ideas and using pupils’ reasoning to help establish these were most likely to result in greater pupil achievement and identified a range of other factors that contributed to effective numeracy teaching.

The study helps demonstrate some important links between teacher understandings, teaching and learning that may help teachers to take a fresh look at their own practice in the light of their knowledge and beliefs about numeracy.The case studies, which illustrate teaching and learning in classroom contexts, are not taken from the main study itself, but are independent studies from a number of other schools.