Nurseries encouraged to sign up for fully funded Maths Champions programmes
A programme which supports early years practitioners with their confidence and ability to teach maths to children in early years settings is currently recruiting settings to take part.
Thanks to the Department for Education’s Accelerator funding, nurseries, nursery schools and pre-schools will be able to participate in the Maths Champions Programme in June 2025.
Maths Champions is an evidence-based, professional development programme delivered by National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA). It is aimed at increasing early years practitioner skills, knowledge, awareness and confidence in supporting children’s early mathematical development.
The Maths Champions programme is a fully funded initiative, the only criteria for nurseries is that they must have at least six three to four-year-olds in their setting and that Maths Champions must also be at least Level 3 qualified.
Commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation, the independent evaluation team from the Universities of Durham and York analysed the results of the programme. They concluded that children in a setting that ran the programme made, on average, three months additional progress in maths and language development. This initial progress was then discovered to have longer-lasting effects, extending into the end of their school reception year.
Children eligible for Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) in the intervention nurseries made, on average, the equivalent of six months’ additional progress in maths attainment.
Emily Yeomans, co-CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), said:
“Our previous trials have shown Maths Champions to be an effective, low-cost option to build mathematical development for children in the long term. So it’s great that we’re able to offer even more places to early years settings to benefit from the programme.”
Stella Ziolkowski, NDNA’s Director of Quality and Training said: “We are actively encouraging nurseries across England to join our fully funded programme in June 2025 and currently have 161 spaces available.
“The fully funded programme improves staff knowledge and confidence in embedding Maths into everyday practice and improves children’s learning outcomes. It has an added benefit of boosting children’s learning and development across other areas including broader language skills.
“The Maths Champions programme is a tried and tested model of learning that has been proven to increase children’s maths attainment by an average of three months. The programme is completely free to nurseries and accessible as an online course which can be fitted around the working day.
“Children are not born with maths anxiety; they learn this from adults surrounding them. Evaluation of the Maths Champions programme provides evidence to show increased confidence levels of all staff in participating settings in providing high quality educational experiences for children within their everyday routine.”
Following the study, more than one thousand nurseries have benefitted from this programme and that confidence has continued to increase.
On completion of the programme a Maths Champion said: “Personally, I was really anxious when I was told I was going to be signed up to the programme as I consider myself as one of those individuals who has a fear of maths, a fear of teaching it because I’m not confident with it myself. I dreaded the year ahead.
“I feel as though my confidence is increasing all the time, although I still have a lot to learn – the maths champions programme is only the start of my maths journey, and I will continue to implement maths into practice all of the time.
“I now understand that maths is as important as stories and songs within early years, and the more confident I am to teach it, the more successful our children are likely to be with learning it.
“As our school is part of an academy I have been asked to deliver an information evening to some of the Early Years staff from other settings within our trust. Share ideas and progress we have made with Maths – Something I never thought I would be doing when I first started on this journey!
“I have taken away some really useful resources which we will be able to use around our setting. I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to be on this journey and to our Early Years Advisor Paula who has been helpful with feedback, signposting and reassurance when I needed it.”
Nurseries who enrol, nominate a Maths Champion and a Deputy Maths Champion who lead the programme. They support, inspire and motivate the staff within their setting. They receive training over the course of 12 months including one-to-one support sessions from NDNA, bespoke online training courses, coaching, an observational assessment tool and play-based activities.
- England
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