How does Big Maths work?
The Big Maths framework is built on the natural progression of maths learning, and is deeply influenced by the work of leading educationalists, researchers, and practitioners. To create this framework, we followed a detailed and thoughtful process;
- Identified over 1,200 small learning steps that children take on their maths journey.
- Grouped these steps into Progress Drives, which show how smaller skills build towards larger learning goals.
- Organised the Progress Drives into key skill areas, such as Counting Skills.
- Divided the Progress Drives between two key strands: Basic Skills and Wider Maths Skills.
CLIC & SAFE
To make things a little more friendly to navigate and reference, we adopted the acronyms CLIC and SAFE:
Basic Skills:
Wider Maths Skills:
Counting
Learn Its
It’s Nothing New
Calculation
Shape
Amounts
Fractions
Explaining Data
Progress Drives and Small Steps
A Progress Drive is a carefully sequenced set of small learning steps that build towards a larger objective. Each step is linked to a specific Year and Term, aligned with your curriculum expectations. This makes tracking progress, assessing attainment, and planning lessons simple and efficient—especially when using Big Maths Online.
Every step includes a Learning Objective and a set of ‘Remember To’s’, which serve as the success criteria for that step (as well as supporting the ‘I do’, ‘We do’, ‘You do’ style of teaching).
This image shows all the Progress Drives, starting with Reception at the centre and extending outward to Year 6 (or Primary 7), clearly illustrating the depth and structure of the Big Maths framework.
Big Maths works in Small Steps!
The number of steps in a Progress Drive can vary. For example, our Place Value Progress Drive includes just five key steps.
This image displays each step, along with its Learning Objective, ‘Remember To’s’ (the success criteria), and the Year and Term it’s mapped to in the English National Curriculum.
Big Maths works because each learning step is deliberately small. This ensures there are no gaps for pupils to fall into, while giving teachers the chance to gently ‘nudge’ understanding forward.
This approach gives children the time and focus they need to secure each skill in long-term memory, building real confidence and lasting progress
‘I do’, ‘We do’, ‘You do’ Teaching
We follow the ‘I do, We do, You do’ approach to teaching—also known as the Gradual Release Model. This method begins with the teacher introducing a new skill and ends with children using it independently. It guides learners through three key stages:
- ‘I do’ – The teacher models the new skill clearly, showing exactly how it’s done.
- ‘We do’ – The teacher supports and guides learners as they practise together, helping to build confidence and assess readiness for independence.
- ‘You do’ – Learners use the new skill on their own, applying what they’ve learned with growing confidence.
Once children can apply the skill independently, our ‘Spaced Practice Resources’ allow them to ‘Do It Again’ (and again!), helping them to build fluency and secure the skill in long-term memory.
At Big Maths, we aim for every child to develop strong fluency and mental maths skills. That’s why we encourage teachers to focus on what each child knows and is ready to learn next, rather than following age-based expectations alone.
What do your pupils know?
We recommend starting with a Baseline Assessment when introducing Big Maths. This helps you quickly identify each child’s most basic learning gaps, so you can focus your teaching where it’s needed most. It’s a powerful way to rapidly build a strong foundation of essential skills.
Once Big Maths is in place, pupils enjoy taking part in ‘Beat That!’ challenges each week. These not only show the impact of your teaching, but also help to inform your planning for the weeks ahead.
In the first few weeks of implementation, the focus is on:
- The Learning Gaps identified in your baseline assessments,
- The spread of ability in your class,
- The Gap to Age Related Expectations, and
- Establishing the weekly routines of Assess > Plan > Teach
For more information about our assessment system ‘Big Maths Beat That!’ please Click Here
We do not subscribe to planning lessons based simply on chronological age like most approaches.
Curriculum Aims for Mathematics
Traditionally every curriculum has prioritised the 3 Rs – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic, targeting a solid foundation in each area. Arithmetic is an elementary branch of mathematics that studies numerical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In recent years, primary curriculums have become increasingly saturated, not just with additional subjects, but within subjects, and maths is no exception.
There are vast differences between the curriculum in England, which focuses on whether pupils have specific elements of knowledge, and those in Scotland and Wales which focus on the development of skills and competencies. To read more about how Big Maths works with your curriculum visit the maths curriculum page.
We believe that ‘the fundamentals of mathematics’ are better described as Basic Skills, or Numeracy, essentially those skills required to be confident about the maths we encounter in real-life. Teachers should focus on Basic Skills (CLIC) and the progress that children are making!
A Whole School
Maths Framework
Built on Basic Skills
Curriculum Mapping
Within the Big Maths framework we recognise more than 1,000 small steps of progression. As a result of this detail, we can accurately map all of the expectations of your curriculum to our framework.
Our planning tools allow you to see all of the steps that are aligned to each term so you can decide when and what you want to teach, considerate of the needs of your pupils. For every term we show you new learning objectives and steps that we suggest you revisit because they are either pre-requisite or complementary to the new learning objectives that term.
Bespoke Teacher Notes and Resources
In Big Maths Online, you can access over 15,0000 bespoke resources to support teaching and learning. Each step has it’s own resources, with specific Teacher Notes that clarify the objective of that step. Most steps have bespoke resources including (where appropriate):
- Lesson PowerPoints
- Spaced Practice Resources
- Classroom Displays
- Prove It! Activities
We help you to teach!
We give you tools and resources that help you to plan and teach your pupils, including:
- Identification of Learning Gaps
- Lesson Planning tools
- Over 15,000 resources
- Assessment and Tracking reports
Ever Improving!
We are always investing in Big Maths Online to improve performance, resources and tools to support you. We value feedback and requests from our family of teachers and school leaders, often incorporating these into our development plans. In 2024, we have introduced a new Home Learning website, and a Pupil Feedback feature as a direct result of teachers’ requests.
