Is my child behind in maths in Year 7, 8 or 9?

What does "behind" mean after Year 6?

The last national maths test is the Key Stage 2 SATs in Year 6, where a scaled score of 100 is the expected standard and 110 or more the higher standard. In 2026, 75% of pupils reached the expected standard in maths and 27% the higher standard, so roughly one in four starts secondary school below it. That is a lot of children, and secondary schools plan for it.

After that there is no national yardstick until GCSE. In Years 7 to 9 "behind" means behind what your child's school planned to have taught by now, measured by its own tests. Two schools can put the same child in very different places, which is one reason to ask questions before drawing conclusions.

Which signs are normal, and which are worth a conversation?

Finding a new topic hard at first is how learning maths feels, at every age. So is a wobble in the first term of Year 7, when the school, the teachers and the methods are all new, and a set change that feels like a verdict but is usually about pace.

Worth a conversation with the maths teacher: maths homework avoided for weeks rather than days, the same kind of question coming back wrong term after term, a child who cannot yet do things primary school taught (times tables, fractions of amounts, working with negative numbers), or real distress about maths lessons.

How do I find the actual gap?

"Behind in maths" is rarely behind in all of it. It is usually one or two foundations that newer topics keep leaning on. Three ways to find them:

• Ask the teacher for the topic breakdown of the last assessment, not just the score.
• Look at the school homework platform, if it has one: it may show which questions were missed.
• Ask your child to explain how they would do one question out loud. Where the explanation stops is the gap.

Which foundations matter most in Years 7 to 9?

Most of what secondary maths builds in the first two years leans on a few things from primary school. If any of these is shaky, it is the place to start, ahead of whatever the class is on this week.

What actually helps at home?

Little and often beats long sessions. Ten or fifteen minutes three or four times a week on the gap you found does more than an hour on a Sunday, and short sessions are easier to keep going. Mixing in a few questions from earlier topics keeps them from fading.

Two traps are worth avoiding. Teaching a method different from the school's can confuse rather than help, so ask your child to show you how their teacher does it. And how you talk about maths matters: "I was never any good at maths either" is kindly meant, but it tells a child the struggle is permanent. "This one's tricky, let's look at it together" tells them it is not.

When should I ask the school for more?

If a term of steady practice has not moved the gap, ask the head of maths what support the school offers: many run small-group catch-up sessions. If maths has been hard for years, and numbers themselves seem confusing rather than particular topics, it is reasonable to ask the school's SENCo whether a closer look is worthwhile. Schools decide what support and assessment they offer; asking is how you start that conversation.