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ABSTRACT
The maths curriculum for year‐2 pupils in inner London was being covered in a more uniform way across schools and classrooms in 1993 than it had been a decade earlier. There was less variation between classes in the level of curriculum coverage, a stronger association between maths attainment and curriculum coverage, and less variation between teachers in that association. However, this greater uniformity was not found for year‐1 classes. Moreover, a significant number of pupils actually covered less of the maths curriculum in year 2 than they had in year 1. There were also differences in the pattern of results between subdivisions of the maths curriculum known as Attainment Targets. In particular, there was more variation between classes in the level of coverage for the Attainment Target covering Space, Shape and Measures (AT3) than for the other two Attainment Targets — Using and Applying Mathematics (AT1), and Number (AT2) — in both years. Also, the link between maths attainment, as measured by a standardized test, and coverage was weaker for AT3.
These results are based on extensive multilevel modelling of data collected in 1992/93 from teachers in 22 schools about 550 pupils, and secondary analysis of data collected in a similar way in earlier studies in inner London, in 1984/85 and 1988. The changes can be interpreted in the light of changes in the education system brought about by the Education Reform Act in 1988. Although opportunities to learn maths at Key Stage One appear both to have increased, and to have become distributed more equitably across schools since the mid‐1980s, it is possible that the changes could lead to a widening gap in opportunity to learn across social groups.