Among nurseries that took part in the Maths Champion programme, where staff are trained to teach maths, children made three months additional progress in their numeracy skills and language development.
Progress was even greater among disadvantaged children eligible for early years pupil premium funding involved in the study.
On average they made up to six months additional progress in maths. But the evaluation of the programme adds that these results involved a relatively small number of disadvantaged children and the impact of additional maths teaching on their development needs further research.
The Maths Champion programme, involving three- to four-year-olds, has been delivered by the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) and evaluated by academics from Durham and York universities.
It sees a senior member of nursery staff become a ‘maths champion’ to train and support colleagues in teaching maths. A ‘deputy maths champion’ is also appointed through the one-year programme.
Training covers early years maths theory and the programme also sees settings develop a maths action plan and track children’s progress.
Among early years staff involved in the programme was Gemma Smith a nursery teacher in Bradford.
“This programme has been easy to follow,” she said.
“It has improved staff confidence with maths and has had a positive effect on children. It has made us all step back and look at where we were with maths and make some positive changes to our daily routines and classroom practice.”
The evaluation compared children taking part in the programme with a control group.
More than 1,300 children from 134 settings, including those in the private, charity, school and independent sectors, took part in assessing the programme, which ran from September 2021 to July 2022.
The programme costs £7 per child a year, the evaluation also found.
An independent evaluation of NDNA's Maths Champions training programme from @EducEndowFoundn shows that the programme can boost children's language development and maths skills by three months.
— NDNA (@NDNAtalk) July 13, 2023
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“The findings that this programme leads to three month’s additional progress for children in less than a year, is a significant impact for a child aged three or four,” said NDNA chief executive Purnima Tanuku.
“Ensuring confidence with maths early on can make a significant difference, especially for disadvantaged children’s lives.
“The evaluation shows some evidence of an even greater impact for those children, helping to close the attainment gap.
“Maths Champions has been shown to be a low-cost but highly effective way of giving children professional, targeted support.
“This supports early years practitioners to give children the play-based experiences they need across a range of mathematical concepts," she added.
Lyn Robinson Smith, the University of York's assistant professor leading the evaluation, added that “effective early years education is predictive of children’s later attainment, and therefore it is important that early years interventions are rigorously evaluated”.
