The place
Beckermet Church of England Primary is a school in Cumbria that aims to give every child the opportunity to shine and achieve their full potential.
The challenge
Covid disruption had inevitably led to lost learning, and thus the need to fill gaps in maths knowledge. We needed to find an effective solution.
Planning and implementation
Inevitably, we had noticed gaps in maths knowledge following the disruption caused by Covid. We were looking for an education partner that could provide a solution specific to our children’s needs across our whole school and which supplemented and complemented our teaching of the curriculum.
We were recommended Whizz Education, which helped us plan an approach to tackle this pressing challenge.
Part of the plan included use of Whizz Education’s award-winning virtual tutor Maths-Whizz, which has enabled us to assess and identify precisely where the knowledge gaps are and now empowers our teachers to step in and provide more support and resources so children can hit targets.
Rather than a bolt-on, Maths-Whizz has already become integral to our teaching of the curriculum.
Whizz Education provided teacher training and also a virtual parental session to guarantee understanding and engagement and ensure we could maximise our investment.
In practice
We timetable the use of Maths-Whizz in class in addition to normal lessons. All of our 73 pupils from Y1–Y6 use the virtual tutor for up to an hour per week.
Teachers are able to analyse the data created automatically by the tutor to inform lesson planning.
The Teachers Resource, which is a library of printable worksheets, supplements planning too.
We monitor the progress of each individual or groups of children while they all work at their own level and pace. This is great for the range of abilities within each class and has been helpful for SEND students too.
We also set Maths-Whizz for homework. One benefit is that no marking is needed – the tutor runs itself, automatically adapting and identifying strengths and weaknesses so children progress across the whole maths curriculum.
We can also send motivational messages, which ensure engagement.
The results
Our children are rapidly gaining confidence. They love the online nature of the platform and it’s become part of their routine.
We can already see how knowledge gaps are being identified and filled. Children are in the range they should be in areas which they previously found challenging.
We can also demonstrate accelerated learning: of our pupils using Maths-Whizz for more than 45 minutes per week, 75% have made accelerated progress.
The average improvement across the whole school in Maths Age (a bit like Reading Age) is 17 weeks, which at the time of writing has been achieved with just 11 weeks’ use so far.
As we continue to work towards filling in the learning gaps left by Covid, we’re now confident that, with the support of Whizz Education, our children have the best opportunity to achieve their full potential in maths.
Working in partnership with school leadership, Whizz Education creates mutually agreed implementation plans for maths provision.
It provides headteachers with reliable data that can be submitted to Ofsted and boards of governors that demonstrates progress and attainment.
Confidence that all students are receiving the same high-calibre of teaching across the school is facilitated through teacher capacity building, and a combination of context and data that drives course correction.
Call 020 3328 6564, email support@whizz.com or visit whizz.com
