White Rose Maths wins prestigious award for its Covid-19 response

The Bett (British Educational Training and Technology) awards celebrate the highest levels of achievement across the education and technology field.

This year’s judging panel commented that the new Covid-19 Response Champions (UK Company) category was heavily subscribed with high quality entrants: the pandemic has inevitably placed enormous strains on teaching and learning, and many companies have stepped in to offer their help.

White Rose Maths was shortlisted alongside highly respected and much larger competitors such as BBC Children’s & Education and Oxford University Press.

Caroline Hamilton, Head of White Rose Maths, said: “We’re honoured to have received this Bett award and want to share it with the incredible community of pupils, parents, carers, teachers and practitioners who have responded so enthusiastically to the schemes, videos, worksheets and other resources that we’ve produced. Stick with us: closures or not, there’s plenty more to come!”

Formed in 2017 as a company within the Trinity Multi-Academy Trust, White Rose Maths was becoming widely known in the UK and beyond long before the pandemic struck.

This team of expert maths teachers was working hard to help schools transform the way that children learn maths. Passionate about proving that every child could learn and enjoy maths, the team was busy training teachers and practitioners in ‘teaching for mastery’.

By contrast with traditional methods, the mastery approach enables children to fully understand mathematical concepts, allowing them to become confident, motivated and resilient mathematicians.

Alongside the training, White Rose Maths developed free, detailed ‘step by step’ schemes of learning for Early Years through to GCSE level, as well as worksheets, interactive whiteboard slides, parent booklets, and various other resources, many of which were provided free. To help fund all their free materials, White Rose Maths also introduced ‘premium’ resources available for a low-cost subscription.

Under the growing Covid threat, the initial school closure was announced in March 2020, with only a few days’ notice. White Rose Maths acted immediately to help sustain pupils’ learning. Because their schemes of learning were already widely used, the team knew that any additional provision they made would ensure familiarity and continuity for pupils and teachers alike. Their Home Learning plan began with free daily video lessons for Years 1-8, all based on the small-step schemes. They also offered their premium worksheets and answers to accompany each lesson, free of charge: these were later made freely available throughout the school closure period via White Rose Maths’ partnership with BBC Bitesize. A 12-week summer curriculum, free parent workbooks and fun online events like the Friday Family Challenge also saw vast numbers of pupils, families and teachers participating in the fun and learning of maths – despite lockdown!

In choosing White Rose Maths (WRM) as the Category Winner, the judges particularly commended several features, including the team’s rapid response to the sudden lockdown in March and the fact that this response was founded on the high quality White Rose Maths resources that were already in place, and familiar to so many pupils.