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As a Central Maths Hub, we firmly believe that providing children with the opportunity to explore and enjoy maths at an early age is crucial to their longer term learning and understanding.

We asked a member of our LLME community and Primary Mastery Specialist - Louise Lucas - for her thoughts on the importance of maths in Early Years and how her experience in working with the Maths Hub has impacted the pupils within her infant school.

What is your current role within school?

I am currently a full time Year 2 teacher and Maths lead within our Infant school.

How long have you been involved with the Central Maths Hub?

Although my school had a historic link with the Maths Hub, I have been fully involved since September 2024. 

How has your role  within Maths Hub positively impacted on your own development.

It has had a huge positive impact, I have gained so much subject knowledge around Maths and the pedagogy around it. As well as building my pedagogy for working with colleagues. It has been such an interesting and thought provoking experience which I have really enjoyed.

What impact have you witnessed in your own school as a result of the Teaching for Mastery work.

The impact in my school has been massive. We have completely changed our whole Maths curriculum in line with the NCETM, we have come away from a scheme and are using the CP Materials and supplementing them with carefully adapted resources from Oak Academy. In our Early Years unit, we have changed from using Power Maths to using Mastering Number, this has really helped embed early mathematics within EYFS and even though a lot of our children are EAL, they are able to articulate their learning really well. 

What are your own thoughts on the importance of maths in Early Years

In my opinion, Maths is in the Early Years is probably the most important of all the years. We want our youngest members of the school community to have the time to really explore Maths and become fluent in those numbers to 10. They have the chance to spot the maths that is all around them and really get hands on with how numbers are made and the start of pattern spotting. It's also the time to get children excited about Maths and encourage the curiosity we want in the upper year groups. Without all those play opportunities, children really struggle when applying maths to different manipulatives and more formal equations. Give them time to play with Maths, before they lose the chance! 

Why should schools, in particular Early Year get involved with the maths hub?

All schools should be involved in a Maths Hub, there are so many supportive Maths Leaders, all with their own expertise who are always there to help! Even though I myself am a Mastery Specialist, I am always asking questions to my colleagues to further develop and they are always more than willing to help! There are so many Pathways to choose from, there really is something for everyone and the Early Years SKTM pathways are amazing for meeting other Early Years colleagues, creating a supportive network and gaining a huge pile of resources to use within your own settings. Sending out Early Years Staff on these has really helped develop our Shape, Space and Measure curriculum and we would recommend them to everyone!