Early aid is key to stopping maths fail in schools

Students struggling with mathematics are not getting the help they need early enough, which is causing them to fall further behind, new research has found.

A paper from the Centre for Independent Studies has found that as many as 400,000, or 10 per cent of students, require extra support or are below the international benchmark in mathematics. Picture: iStock

Students struggling with mathematics are not getting the help they need early enough, which is causing them to fall further behind, new research has found.

A paper from the Centre for Independent Studies has found that as many as 400,000, or 10 per cent of students, require extra support or are below the international benchmark in mathematics.

Of those, only one in five will ever catch up to their peers.

Author of the report, “Screening that Counts: Why Australia needs universal early numeracy screening”, Kelly Norris said we were in the midst of a national “student catch-up crisis”.

“Many children who perform poorly in maths in the first few years at school go on to suffer a failure cycle that is very difficult for schools to reverse,” she said.

Ms Norris believes a robust, consistent, and evidence-based educational safety net for children struggling with maths is needed as early as year 1.

This means creating a nationally consistent tool that would test the three types of “number sense” – number, number relations, and number operations – at least twice a year.

The current inconsistent and inefficient systems lead to needy students falling through the cracks.

“It’s one thing for governments to commit to funding large intervention programs – like small-group tutoring policies – but this is compromised if screening is not efficient, early, and informative,” Ms Norris said.

“Education systems can’t afford to run a ‘wait to fail’ approach before additional support is provided.

“This makes early and effective screening the best possible way to help the children most in need of support.”

The call echoes recommendations made by independent reviews to Australia’s education ministers, including the recent Better and Fairer reviews that each inform the next National School Reform Agreements.

It comes as the number of high school students choosing mathematics subjects towards the end of their education has plummeted in recent years to ­record lows.

However, she did acknowledge the confidence gap in the sector when it comes to early numeracy and noted that most school systems had responded by adopting early literacy screening approaches, particularly the Phonics Screening Check.