Catch Up® Numeracy: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary
20 February 2014
This NFER report has been produced for the Education Endowment Foundation and its evaluation of the Catch Up® Numeracy Intervention. Catch Up® Numeracy is a one-to-one intervention for primary school children who are struggling with numeracy. It consists of two 15-minute lessons per week for up to 30 weeks, usually delivered by teaching assistants. The intervention is aimed at primary aged children struggling with mathematics. The project ran from September 2012 to July 2013 and was delivered by Catch Up®, and Dr Ann Dowker of Oxford University. NFER were responsible for a number of trial activities including the production of the final report.
Key Findings
- Within this trial, one-to-one support by teaching assistants led to a significant gain in numeracy skills.
- Catch Up® makes similar significant gains, but there is little evidence that Catch Up® Numeracy provided any additional gains in numeracy outcomes over and above those from one to one teaching itself.
- Schools can find it challenging to run two 15 minutes sessions per week, due to timetabling and other issues.
- Structured interventions, such as Catch Up® Numeracy, should be planned into the timetable from the start of the new school year to ensure they are given priority and status.