Lessons from a school that cracked the maths code

The teacher had caught an unexpected curveball – welcoming to her lesson half the students from another class, due to a colleague’s illness.

As the teacher introduced the topic of the lesson – dividing fractions – I thought, ‘32 students, complex topic, one teacher… this will be tricky’.

Then I watched, in awe, as 32 students tuned in to the teacher, each finding their rhythm in the packed classroom.

Every student, without exception, picked up where they (presumably) left off in their last class, actively participating in the lesson and diving into practice questions.

I was witnessing the dividends of a decade’s investment in explicit and systematic teaching of maths.

The secret of Bentleigh West’s success is that explicit instructional routines are standard in all maths classes from Prep to Year 6, and the maths curriculum is designed so all students in the same year level learn the same content at the same time.

It wasn’t always this way.

Before 2014, maths instruction at Bentleigh West was focused on ‘maths-lite’ games and activities. There were no shared curriculum materials for maths. Teachers spent countless hours designing their own lessons.

With teachers planning solo, students were buffeted by a disjointed maths curriculum that didn’t build sequentially year-on-year.

In 2014, Year 5 students were performing below their peers in schools with similar students. Many were falling behind and needed extra help.

Put simply, maths was not a priority. ‘It was always the first thing dropped,’ the current principal, Sarah Asome, told me. The literacy block may have been sacred, but maths often got squeezed out of the timetable.

The previous principal at Bentleigh West, Steven Capp, knew things had to change. From 2014, school leaders worked relentlessly to turn around classroom maths instruction, by implementing:

• A common timetable that guaranteed students 90 minutes of maths every day.
• A whole-school, sequenced maths curriculum, that broke down the content into lesson-by-lesson chunks, and included shared lesson materials such as PowerPoint slides and worksheets.
• A common instructional approach for maths lessons, with all classes explicitly taught new content step-by-step, lots of opportunities for practice, and the expectation of mastery.
• Weekly assessments to check students’ learning, with Friday’s maths lesson devoted to ‘re-teaching’ content students were struggling with, and extending students who’d mastered it.
• A maths assessment schedule, including external assessments, to provide an independent measure of students’ learning progress.
• An extension class timetable for high-achieving students.

The benefits for students are huge. Classroom routines reduce disruptive behaviour, meaning more time can be focused on maths.

Clear explanations and ample practice mean students make quick progress – students now complete both the Foundation and Year 1 maths curriculum in the first year of school.

All of this builds students’ confidence and enjoyment of maths. One teacher told me: ‘When I say it’s time for maths, they cheer – they love it!’

Teachers benefit too. Seeing their students succeed is deeply satisfying. Reflecting on experiences at previous schools and now at Bentleigh West, an experienced teacher told me: ‘I never felt like I was effective.

Now I feel successful every day – I feel like I’m a great teacher.’

Teachers also save hours of lesson preparation time, giving them time to decide how to teach their students, rather than just what to teach.

The results are stunning. In 2024 NAPLAN numeracy, the average Year 5 student at Bentleigh West performed well above the average Year 5 student at other schools with similar students. And, incredibly, their average achievement was higher than that of Australian Year 9 students. 

Half of Bentleigh Wests’ Year 5s achieved in the top NAPLAN proficiency level, and far fewer needed catch-up support than in 2014. 

These results are a fantastic reward for the sustained efforts of students and teachers. One of the school’s leaders told me: ‘I remember one of the first years that a group that had explicit maths instruction from Prep moved through to Year 3. We were almost crying in the office because we got good results. We were literally hugging and jumping around in a circle because we were so excited – it had worked!’

Unfortunately, not all Australian students and teachers experience this kind of success. In 2024 NAPLAN, one in three students across Australia were not proficient in numeracy.

In practice, this means many Year 7 students struggle with adding and multiplying. They may still be counting on their fingers to solve simple problems, while classmates race ahead to algebra. This creates a learning gap that widens every school day.

Australia is also falling well behind on maths excellence. Just 13 per cent of Australian Year 4 students met the ‘advanced’ maths proficiency benchmark in the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, compared with 22 per cent in England and 49 per cent in Singapore.

The experience of Bentleigh West shows that big improvement is possible. But it takes a lot of work to make best practice common practice.

That’s why we at Grattan Institute are calling on the federal and state governments and Catholic and independent school leaders to commit to a 10-year ‘Maths Guarantee’ strategy, with five pillars:

1. Aim higher, by adopting a long-term goal that 90 per cent of students are proficient in numeracy, while also seeking to drive up excellence.
2. Ensure schools have clear, comprehensive, and practical guidance on how to teach maths well.
3. Arm schools with high-quality tools of the trade – quality-assured curriculum materials and rigorously evaluated assessments for use in class.
4. Dial-up investment in high-quality maths professional development, including new primary maths micro-credentials, and Maths Hubs, where the best primary schools provide shoulder-to-shoulder support for nearby schools.
5. Require all primary schools to screen students’ numeracy in Year 1, using a research-validated assessment, and review the quality of schools’ maths curriculum through more exacting school reviews.

All Australian children deserve a genuine commitment to mathematical excellence. I know it can work – because I’ve seen it in action.