By Yasemin Jemal, Maths Lead & Year 6 Teacher
Lordship Lane Primary, Wood Green, London is an inclusive school which embraces the diversity of
our community. The school provides a safe and nurturing environment which enables children to
become confident and ambitious learners. Like many schools, class sizes are large, made up of over
30 students with diverse needs.
We have been a partner with Whizz Education for ten years, using their award winning virtual tutor
Maths-Whizz as an intervention for 30 students, however, a recent visit from our educational partner
Ben Slack encouraged a change of strategy to get full use out of the platform. This is where we
decided to focus on one Year group (Year 6) to support students who had fallen behind the most in
maths.
Following a planning session we agreed our goal was that all of our 75 students in Y6 would spend 45
minutes per week on Maths-Whizz, with the objective of achieving accelerating learning progress in
maths in advance of the forthcoming SATS assessment.
Maths-Whizz is brilliant because it differentiates learning. The virtual tutor initially assesses each
child and pitches lessons at their level across a range of topics covering the whole maths curriculum.
We also use Maths-Whizz in class, so we can all be working on the same topic, but each pupil can
make progress at their own rate. This is really helpful in a class with a range of abilities. Maths-
Whizz can be set for homework too.
Ben used his expertise as a former teacher of ten years to add tremendous value to the
implementation of Maths-Whizz in our school. During school visits, Ben setup Q&A sessions with our
children and teachers, which resulted in increased understanding, engagement and enjoyment on
completing both the exercise and test elements of the curriculum. We noticed a marked improvement
in the pace of work due to improved fluency in calculations, especially with middle attainers.
We have been pleased and reassured to find that the assessment data generated automatically by
Maths-Whizz aligns precisely with our assessment system Star Maths, so we can evaluate accurately
where each child is in relation to their level of progress.
Our Star Assessments showed 51% of Year 6 were Below Age Expectations in the Autumn, 49% at
Age and 15% above Age Expectations. In our Spring 2 assessments, just a few months since we
started using Maths-Whizz in a strategic way, the whole of Y6 has shown significant improvement:
with 35% Below Age Expectations, 65% at Age and 27% Above Age Expectations.
The lower attainers have responded particularly well. They love the interactive nature of the tutor that
recognises and automatically adapts to their knowledge. Children are in control and have visibility of
their success, which is paramount in improving engagement and enjoyment in maths and reducing
maths anxiety.
Across the three classes in Y6, there is now a genuine excitement and interest in maths. Pupils who I
don’t teach even come up to me as the Maths Lead, to tell me about how well they are doing on
Maths-Whizz!
We celebrate successes during assembly based on usage and Whizz has provided us with a Trophy
for the class with the most engagement.
Because Maths-Whizz is so great for supporting children with different needs, the teaching staff really
appreciate this as an appropriate tool to enable them to achieve improved learning outcomes.
Therefore, due to the success of working in partnership with Whizz Education, we have decided to
double the size of the programme next year to include some of Y5 and Y2 students too. We are now
looking forward to even more of our pupils achieving accelerated learning in maths with the help of
Whizz Education.