Recruiting and retaining specialist maths teachers remains one of the most persistent challenges for secondary schools in England.
In the absence of specialist recruitment, schools rely on short-term fixes: repeated recruitment cycles, stretching existing staff across key stages and redeploying specialists to examination classes while non-specialists cover lower years.
Such arrangements are rarely sustainable and do little to build long-term capacity within mathematics departments.
For many years, I have been involved in the design and delivery of professional development for non-specialist teachers of mathematics (Crisan and Rodd, 2017; Crisan and Hobbs, 2019).
Together with colleagues, I have learned what works, what does not, and most importantly, what cannot be rushed. There is no quick-fix retraining that produces a mathematics teacher.
Subject knowledge and professional identity develop together, over time.
For many non-specialists, mathematics was previously experienced as a service subject – procedural, instrumental, and oriented towards “getting the right answer”.
Teaching mathematics well, however, requires engagement with reasoning, structure, justification and generality: the core practices of the discipline (Crisan, 2021).
Teachers who have sustained opportunities to learn
If pupils are to experience mathematics as something coherent and intellectually demanding, departments need teachers who have had sustained opportunities to learn mathematics in this way.
Seen in this light, the mathematics teacher degree apprenticeship represents a strategic investment for schools, grounded in partnership with training providers to support development and the growth of subject knowledge for teaching over time.
The teacher degree apprenticeship is a four-year undergraduate programme leading to qualified teacher status, with apprentices employed by schools from day one.
What matters most for schools is not simply that apprentices are salaried, but that the programme is deliberately structured to benefit departments.
Around 40 per cent of learning is university-led, with the remaining 60 per cent embedded in school. This allows school mathematics departments to gain additional capacity immediately, while developing specialists through a structured and educative process.
Rather than treating subject study and professional learning as separate endeavours, the programme supports apprentices in deepening their mathematical understanding while developing the pedagogical understanding required to work with diverse learners in classroom settings.
Mentors are central to this work
Central to this work are school-based mathematics mentors in the employing schools.
Mentors adopt an educative approach to mentoring that supports apprentices’ development beyond the immediate school context, connecting departmental practice with wider professional and disciplinary perspectives.
This learning is enacted in schools almost immediately. Apprentices observe lessons, support small groups, work with pupils with SEND, contribute to intervention programmes, assist with assessment and resource development, and gradually take on responsibility.
Schools report that apprentices add tangible value from the first year.
The Department for Education funding pilot for secondary mathematics which has been extended to include the 2026 cohort further strengthens the case.
Over the four years, schools benefit from a substantial salary subsidy – 60 per cent in year one, when apprentices are building foundational expertise, tapering across the programme to 20 per cent in the final year, when apprentices teach up to an 80 per cent timetable.
Throughout, apprentices are paid on the unqualified teacher scale, reducing financial pressure on mathematics staffing.
Benefits extend beyond maths
But the financial argument alone misses the point. For schools, the apprenticeship forms part of a longer-term approach to developing specialist mathematics teachers who understand the school’s pupils, culture and curriculum.
Importantly, the benefits extend beyond mathematics. Apprentices often contribute to SEND provision, intervention work, literacy and pastoral systems.
They become visible role models and, over time, develop a professional identity rooted in both subject expertise and school culture.
If we want all children to appreciate and enjoy mathematics, particularly in schools serving disadvantaged communities where non-specialist teaching is most prevalent, then we need pathways that support teachers to engage deeply with the disciplinary practices of mathematics.
The degree apprenticeship offers exactly that – it’s a pathway that resists shortcuts.
Schools willing to think long-term will find it a powerful way to secure and grow their future specialist mathematics teachers.
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