Moving beyond quick fixes in FE maths

What does it take to improve outcomes in FE maths, particularly for the more than 80% of students who do not achieve a grade 4 in their GCSE resit? Emma Bell, the NCETM’s Director for Post-16 GCSE/FSQ, considers new guidance bringing greater clarity to the sector and the message emerging from it.

The FE Commissioner’s Office recently published an effective practice guide for English and maths, bringing together ten themes for improving outcomes for 16–19 learners.

For those involved in initiatives such as Post-16 GCSE/FSQ Mastery Specialist Programme, much of this will resonate. It reflects what many across the sector are already seeing in practice, and points to a growing alignment around what really makes a difference.

Across FE colleges, contexts and cohorts, the challenges are familiar. Many students arrive without a grade 4 in maths, with fragmented knowledge and insecure understanding. Alongside this sits a lack of confidence and, for some, a deep-rooted belief that maths is simply ‘not for them’.

Achieving a Level 2 qualification in maths is not a new goal. What is coming into clearer focus is how that goal is pursued. Developing secure mathematical understanding matters, not just to pass an exam, but to support students to reason, solve problems and make sense of the world beyond the classroom. That kind of deep, connected understanding cannot be built through short-term interventions.

From delivery to mathematical culture

Success is not just about securing a qualification more efficiently. It's about creating conditions that support students to re-engage with mathematics, both as a subject that makes sense to them and as a skill that has value beyond the exam itself.

Colleges that enjoy stronger outcomes often position maths as a core part of the study programme. Not an isolated resit, but something that is valued, prioritised and connected to each learner’s wider development.

When maths is experienced as a set of disconnected methods to remember, it is fragile. It relies on recall rather than understanding, so is easily forgotten or misapplied. When it is experienced as a coherent system it becomes something students can begin to trust. Ideas are connected, representations reveal structure and reasoning is central. Students are not just following methods but are making sense of why they work.

Rebuilding confidence through understanding

The guidance highlights confidence, belonging and learner identity. In FE maths, these are inseparable from understanding.

Many students arrive in post-16 settings relying on memorised procedures that they do not fully understand. When those procedures fail, their confidence collapses with them.

Across FE maths classrooms, we are seeing how a different experience of mathematics can begin to change this. Where representations are used to expose structure and variation is carefully designed, learners are expected to explain and reason. They begin to make connections across topics. Maths becomes less about remembering isolated methods and more about understanding how ideas fit together.

Confidence is not something that can be built through reassurance alone, but through experiencing mathematics as something coherent and accessible. This is what makes a classroom feel safe in a meaningful way, where students are not just included, but supported to understand, contribute and know that the mathematics is within their reach.

Mastery as a sustained approach

The guidance identifies mastery as a key component of effective teaching. In practice this is about securing ideas that underpin future learning, developing the ultimate transferable skill.

In FE maths, teaching for mastery means revisiting foundational concepts, using representations to connect ideas and designing tasks that prioritise reasoning over answer-getting. It also means providing space to allow these ideas to become embedded, which takes time.

Many students have experienced years of teaching that prioritised short-term interventions and memorised methods, often moving on before understanding was secure. Reversing that and rebuilding a connected mathematical schema cannot be achieved through yet more quick fixes.

Moving beyond quick fixes

There has long been a tendency to look for strategies that will rapidly improve GCSE maths resit outcomes. What the guidance reinforces, and what many in the sector already recognise, is that this is unlikely to be effective.

In recent years, only around one in six students resitting GCSE maths have achieved a grade 4. With outcomes remaining stubbornly low over time, it is difficult to argue that continuing with the same approaches will lead to meaningful improvement.

Improvement in mathematics is cumulative. It depends on curriculum sequencing, task design, classroom discourse and institutional culture working together over time; this is more complex, but it is also more sustainable.

What feels particularly positive is the growing coherence across the sector. The challenge now is not identifying new ideas but sustaining and embedding those we already know to be effective. This includes approaches rooted in teaching for mastery, supporting more students to experience mathematics as something they can understand, trust and ultimately succeed in.