IOE joins new research centre to aid understanding of children’s maths learning

CEML will receive over £8m funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. It will transform understanding of children’s mathematics learning during the early years and design effective educational activities to improve skills and knowledge.

Loughborough University will lead the centre in partnership with IOE and the Universities of Bristol, Ulster, Edinburgh, Oxford, and York.

The centre will bring together research on how young children think about and understand maths and how to improve maths teaching through evidence-based classroom practice.

IOE academics Dr Sam Sims and Professor Jeremy Hodgen will be part of the Centre team. They will be designing evidence-based teacher professional development to help put findings about how children understand maths into practice in the classroom and designing experiments to test whether this improves maths teaching and learning, and whether it is cost effective.

Centre lead Professor Camile Gilmore said: “It is vital that we take action now to reverse the decline in children’s maths skills, and ensure that all children, regardless of their background, have the knowledge they need to succeed and flourish in society.

“This new Centre will bring together international leaders in this field, who are experts in recruiting diverse participant pools to ensure findings are representative of wider society. Our work will have a real-world impact, advancing our understanding of children’s development and providing much needed support for children, families and educators. We are delighted that the ESRC share in our vision and are funding this important centre.”

Dr Sam Sims said: “This centre is unique in bringing together expertise on how children learn maths with expertise on how to design effective teacher professional development. That makes it a really exciting project.” 

Links

• Read the ESRC announcement
• Read Loughborough University’s news story
• View Professor Jeremy Hodgen’s research profile
• View Dr Sam Sims’s research profile
• Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
• Department of Learning and Leadership

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Phil Meech for UCL Institute of Education