Girls become more anxious than boys about maths as they move through secondary school, a major study suggests. The Review of Mathematical Education – now in its second year – is based on England’s largest study of maths education. It includes surveys from 50,000 pupils, parents, teachers and curriculum leaders across 174 primary schools, 148 secondary schools and 41 sixth form colleges. This year’s report looks at the same cohort as last year, as they enter years 1, 8 and 13, and looks at what has changed since the previous year. It surveyed the same pupils, asking them the same questions as last year. The research as by the Observatory for Mathematical Education, created in 2023 with grant funding from algorithmic trading company XTX markets. Here’s what you need to know… 1. Girls’ anxiety about maths gets worse The pupils were asked slightly different questions in year 1, year 8 and year 13 due to their ages, but each cohort was asked the same questions as the year before. Girls in year 1 are slightly more likely to report being worried or very worried that they could not answer maths questions quickly, with 52 per cent of them saying this compared to 48 per cent of boys – a gap of 4 percentage points. This trend widens when looking at the year 8 cohort, where girls are significantly more likely than boys to report anxiety about maths. When asked whether they often worry it will be difficult for them in maths, 58 per cent of girls agreed, compared to 41 per cent of boys – a 17 percentage point gap. The same girls were also more anxious about maths this year than they were in year 7. Last year, 48 per cent of year 7 girls agreed they often worry maths will be difficult for them – 10 percentage points less than this year. In year 13, the cohort was asked several questions about their confidence in maths, which were aggregated into an overall confidence score. While 68 per cent of boys had a high or somewhat high confidence score, this was the case for just 54 per cent of girls – a gap of 14 percentage points. 2. Many moving on before understanding Just under a third (31 per cent) of year 8 pupils who did not meet the expected standard in their year 6 SATs did not fully understand content before the class moved on. This is slightly higher than the responses given by the same cohort when they were in year 7 – with 28 per cent saying this. While 62 per cent of year 8 teachers said they wait until all pupils are ready before moving on to a new topic, almost a quarter (23 per cent) reported regularly moving to a new topic before all pupils were ready. 3. Schools with more disadvantaged pupils favour paper On average across year 1 classes, 81 per cent reported they did maths working out on paper rather than on screens “always” or “a lot” in schools where at least half of pupils were free school meal eligible. This compares to 72 per cent of pupils in schools where a quarter or fewer pupils are eligible for free school meals. And 78 per cent of pupils in schools in the most deprived areas of England also reported this, compared to 65 per cent of pupils in the least deprived areas. The report acknowledges that the reasons for this, and its implications, are “not entirely clear”. 4. Ratios sidelined, despite curriculum reform The last curriculum review in 2014 put more emphasis on teaching about ratio, proportion and rates of change. Despite this, last year’s report found that these topics only featured in two per cent of the most recent lessons reported by year 7 teachers. This increased slightly in this year’s report, with 11 per cent of year 8 teachers reporting that their lessons were focussed on ratios. But topics like algebra are far more dominant with 40 per cent of teachers reporting their most recent lesson was focused on algebra. Meanwhile in primaries, teaching of number takes up 70 per cent of curriculum time in year 1, compared to 65 per cent in reception last year. The government said it would review key stage 1 to 3 “with a particular focus on resequencing content”, in its response to the curriculum and assessment review last November.