Ending primary maths ‘ability’ groups to boost achievement

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Reforming the use of primary school ‘ability’ grouping for maths at age seven could help improve UK schools’ maths achievement and encourage more girls to pursue the subject, according to research from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Dr Tammy Campbell found that placing children in bottom groups in class at this early age has a lasting effect on how they view their ability when they reach the age of 11, regardless of their maths cognitive test scores. This ‘self-concept’ affects their trajectories through education and beyond, impacting learning behaviours, subject choice and specialisms, attainment, and adult careers. It is particularly important for girls, because girls and women are underrepresented in subjects and careers related to maths.

The research, which was funded by the British Academy, analysed data for 4,463 children from the Millennium Cohort Study: 2,299 girls and 2,164 boys. It used information on the in-class maths ‘ability’ group children were placed in at age seven, teachers’ judgements of the children’s maths at age seven, and the children’s own reports of whether they are good at maths four years later, at age 11.

It found that 83 per cent of the children were put into ability groups in class for maths at age seven. At 11, 13 per cent of children said they were not good at maths; 16 per cent of girls and nine per cent of boys. Fifteen per cent of all girls and boys who were placed in the bottom ‘ability’ group at seven thought they were not good at maths at 11, compared to seven per cent of children placed in the top group, regardless of their maths cognitive test scores.

Breaking things down by gender, all boys placed in the top group at seven had very low chances of negative maths self-concept at 11 – regardless of their maths skills. In contrast, only high-scoring girls placed in the highest ‘ability’ group had positive maths self-concept at 11. Girls with lower scores at 7 who were placed in the top group were more likely to have later negative maths self-concept.

When it comes to teacher judgements of children’s maths, at seven 43 per cent of children were judged ‘above average’, 40 per cent ‘average’, and 17 per cent ‘below average’. 20 per cent of all girls and boys who were judged ‘below average’ by their teacher at seven thought they were not good at maths at 11, compared to seven per cent of children judged ‘above average’, regardless of maths cognitive test scores.

All girls judged ‘below average’ by their teacher at seven were likely to have negative maths self-concept at 11, even if they scored high marks in the maths cognitive tests.

The research concludes: “This research finds that bottom maths ‘ability’ group placement seems to disadvantage all children, even if they have the same maths scores at seven as high-grouped peers…At seven, children’s skills and self-concepts are rapidly developing. Relegating children to a hierarchy of groupings at this premature stage can alter and shape their educational trajectories.

“These substantial associations between both ‘ability’-grouping and teacher judgements, and maths self-concept four years later, show that both are feasibly instrumental in forming primary children’s maths self-concept in ways that vary by gender. Therefore, both should be considered as sites for intervention which could boost maths progression and contribute to closing gender gaps.”