How one disadvantaged school transformed maths
by Daniel Petrie
“I love this job,” said primary school teacher Jack*, as we sat in a spare classroom at The Entrance Public School on the NSW Central Coast. “You know everyone’s nailing it, which is a wonderful feeling as a teacher. You look at your kids and they’re succeeding.”
It wasn’t always this way. The Entrance has spent the past six years laser-focused on improving its maths teaching.
Previously, teaching was highly variable, standards low, and behaviour challenging. Now, maths teaching takes a systematic approach.
Shared instructional routines make lessons fast paced and engaging, and new content is taught explicitly. Teachers all use a shared set of lesson materials, with topics sequenced to build on what’s come before.
The results speak for themselves. Despite serving a highly disadvantaged community with significant proportions of low-income families, Aboriginal students, and single-parent households, The Entrance moved within just one year from 70th out of 73 schools on the Central Coast in maths performance to outperforming similar schools.
Stepping into Jack’s Year 3-4 classroom, I witnessed this firsthand. Students all attacked problems at pace, scribbling solutions on their mini whiteboards, as Jack guided them step-by-step through worded problems about division.
No student was left behind – Jack gave in-the-moment feedback in response to students’ answers, provided extension questions for students who wanted a challenge, and small-group instruction for those struggling to master the lesson’s content.
But this wasn’t just happening in one classroom. Throughout the school, I witnessed the same approach – Foundation year students in one class were tackling the same content as the other Foundation class next door, mini whiteboards were in motion, and students confidently participated in familiar routines like class read-alouds and pair discussions.
The pace was brisk and engagement universal. Jack was no lone wolf: he was following a consistent, whole-school playbook for maths teaching.
These maths teaching practices didn’t magically appear overnight. They are the result of a dedicated commitment by all staff at The Entrance to take a systematic approach to maths teaching.
It all started with the new principal, Dave Stitt, who arrived in 2019. He knew immediately that ‘urgent change’ was needed.
Under Dave’s leadership, his team started by tackling behaviour problems, and introducing a common set of instructional routines so classes were predictable and structured. But in the background, they were also overhauling the school’s maths approach in line with the best evidence.
Getting staff buy-in was crucial. Dave used the school’s poor NAPLAN results to spark uncomfortable but necessary conversations – staff knew they needed to do better for their students.
Dave couldn’t do it all alone – he appointed three senior leaders to spearhead changes to maths instruction.
The team arranged whole-staff professional learning on explicit instruction, developed a school-wide instructional model and common curriculum materials, and instituted regular ‘data days’ where teachers dissected test results to pinpoint exactly where students – and teachers – needed improvement.
No classroom became an island: leaders observed teachers every day, aiming to see each teacher at least once a week.
Early success was motivating. As Dave told me, “We quickly saw improvements in student learning, engagement, and behaviour”.
But while teachers at The Entrance see the benefits of these changes every day, not all teachers around Australia are as lucky.
A 2024 Grattan Institute survey of 1,750 primary school teachers and leaders across the country showed that many teachers don’t have the same support:
- Less than half said that teachers in their school agree about how maths should be taught.
- 3 in 5 teachers said they don’t use shared instructional materials (such as a textbook).
- Only 2 in 5 agreed that professional learning at their school left them more confident to teach maths effectively.
Our survey shows that primary schools need much more support from governments if they’re to build a systematic, whole-school approach to teaching maths.
But we can’t just wait for governments to act. That’s why Grattan Institute has published a guide for principals on how to implement great maths teaching in their schools.
Drawing on lessons learnt from seven case study schools we visited (including The Entrance), we identified six key features of a systematic approach to maths teaching:
- A shared vision for effective maths teaching, including a commitment to evidence-informed practices such as explicit teaching of new content, and protected class time for maths.
- A high-quality, whole-school maths curriculum, with new concepts and skills broken down into manageable chunks and sequenced logically over time.
- Shared instructional routines, with strategies to engage all students in maths classes.
- High-quality assessments, to track student progress and identify students needing extra support.
- Extra support for higher and lower achievers, including small-group tutoring and extension.
- An effective approach to building teacher expertise, including regular observations and coaching.
Our case study schools operate in a variety of different contexts across NSW, Victoria, and Western Australia, including disadvantaged and advantaged communities; metropolitan and regional areas; and government, Catholic, and independent schools.
All are implementing evidence-informed maths teaching practices and shifting the dial for teachers and students in remarkable ways.
In every school, effective leadership was essential for change. While enthusiastic teachers can drive innovation, leadership is critical to establish a shared vision, make the trade-offs required, foster a strong professional culture, and coordinate and weave together the individual components of a great maths program.
Designing, embedding, and sustaining a strong approach also takes long-term commitment.
But the hard work is worth it. As Dave explained, students who once felt like “failures” can now proudly declare, “I didn’t feel like I was learning before. Now I do, now I feel successful.”
And while The Entrance has come a long way, the journey’s only just begun: “It’s exciting. And we have ambitions to keep improving, because we know we can do even better.”
*Jack is a pseudonym, adopted at his request to protect his privacy.