Securing Foundations at Year 7: exploring a year of impact

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'The impact of Securing Foundations at Year 7 can particularly be seen on students in receipt of free school meals.'

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Each year around 30% of Year 6 pupils in England do not meet the expected standard for maths in KS2. They join secondary school with a wide variation in learning needs and may still be working on mathematical content from Key Stage 1 and 2. Securing Foundations at Year 7 was introduced to tackle this challenge, and evaluation following its first year reveals that it has been a phenomenal success.

There has been a marked improvement in student outcomes, particularly for students receiving Free School Meals, a key demographic for the programme, as well as noticeable improvements in students’ confidence and attitudes towards mathematics.

The clue is in the name of this programme: strong and secure foundations are needed to build further mathematical knowledge and understanding, just like the brick foundations of a building. Wobbly or missing bricks are a recipe for disaster. Through this programme, teachers learn how to secure fundamental Key Stage 1 and 2 concepts so students can properly access the Key Stage 3 curriculum.

Background

It had been extensively noted that the gaps in mathematical attainment at Key Stage 2 had increased following the disruption to education caused by COVID, with the gap between disadvantaged students and their peers rising by around 4% to 17%. It was clear that greater support for these students was needed as they moved into Year 7. 

This innovative project provides professional development and classroom resources for secondary school maths teachers and teaching assistants, so they are better equipped with Key Stage 1 and 2 maths curriculum domain-specific knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, and are able to support students with gaps in their understanding. 

Securing Foundations at Year 7 is underpinned by principles designed to promote more equitable outcomes for all students. These include that students of all prior attainments should have access to reasoning and problem solving as a routine part of their curriculum experience. This crucial element of mathematics is something that lower prior-attaining students are too often denied.

Impact

’The impact of Securing Foundations at Year 7 can particularly be seen on students in receipt of free school meals (FSM). Focus students completed a baseline assessment at the start […] which revealed a difference between the scores reported for FSM and non-FSM focus students. Their equivalent impact assessment scores showed that both groups of focus students benefited from engagement with Securing Foundations at Year 7, but the impact on the FSM students had been greater.’ (2025 Securing Foundations at Year 7 Final Report: in press)

This is fantastic news! So often these students are flummoxed when they arrive in Year 7, and continue to muddle through the rest of their time in secondary without the root causes of their mathematical misconceptions and misunderstandings being addressed.  Often, teachers are constrained by a school curriculum and frequent assessments that mean that they feel compelled to try to ‘keep up’; this approach does not serve these students well.

‘Some leaders gain false assurance about the effectiveness of their curriculum design and practice through internal assessments that closely align with ‘expected performance thresholds’ of external assessments. This approach often leads to an acceptance of pupils moving through the mathematics curriculum with significant gaps in their knowledge and leaders failing to make necessary adjustments to their curriculums. In these schools, some pupils would be better served by studying less, but securely learning more.’ Ofsted 2023 ¹ 

Schools and teachers in the first year of this programme took the brave decision to step away from their standard Year 7 curriculum and revisit mathematical content from KS1 and KS2 to ensure that the mathematical foundations were more secure for these students. This approach has proven to be far more effective than being primarily concerned with getting through the scheme of work and hoping that things will stick.

Not only has there been a positive impact on mathematical attainment, but teachers reported a marked improvement in student attitudes and engagement. This is crucial: if students strongly dislike mathematics in Year 7, and nothing is done to change this disposition, teachers have five years of uphill battles ahead of them. Giving students confidence in mathematics early on, ensuring that they understand it, and helping them to realise that their mathematics teacher is ‘on their side’ makes a massive difference to well-being, behaviour and ultimately student progress.

What does the programme involve?

Teachers and teaching assistants join a local Work Group which meets three times a year, with professional development led both centrally by NCETM specialists and locally by Maths Hubs. Participants are supported with a range of materials and professional development exploring effective pedagogical approaches to teaching core mathematical concepts such as the composition of 5 and 10, and the distinction between additive and multiplicative contexts.

The programme proved adaptable to different school contexts. Schools chose different ways to use the materials: some with whole class usage, others for targeted interventions. In some cases the materials replaced the standard curriculum for selected classes; in others, they were used to supplement it. Teachers also reported that the experience of genuine mathematical success was so valuable for Year 7 students that they extended the approach to other year groups, including some in Key Stage 4.

There are no shortcuts! Schools who engaged more fully with the programme and used more of the materials with their students saw the greatest impact.

¹ Ofsted (2023), Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report