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If you’ve worked in a secondary school then you know that, some time during Year 7, many students go from being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to being cynical and disengaged. But why does this happen, and at what point in the school year?

Last year we surveyed high-prior-attaining students every term between the end of Year 6 and the end of Year 7 to find out.

As our resulting report, shows, the answer to when this happens is easy: the spring term. While, of course, this isn’t the case for every student, the biggest decline in engagement happens between Christmas and Easter.

This decline hits all students, regardless of their background. But something interesting happens in the summer - more advantaged students rebound. That’s why I’m writing this now. Because we have an opportunity to make that happen for all children, not just the more advantaged.

At the end of primary school, children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds (C2DE) are more likely to find maths “fun” than children from high-SES backgrounds (ABC1). The gap narrows at Christmas of Year 7, and by Easter the tables have turned. By the summer, high-SES children are twice as likely to find maths fun. This is an astonishingly rapid change.

But it shows that there is no inherent reason why more disadvantaged children are less likely to enjoy maths. They were the more likely children to enjoy it in primary school, just nine months previously. When the environment changed, their perception did, too. But the environment is within our control.

There are three things that students tell us might be affecting how they perceive maths, and all three are within our power to change.

The need for balance

The first is repetition. Year 7 maths teachers face a real tension. Every class arrives with students who have covered different content, reached different depths and had very different primary experiences.

The natural response is to revisit the foundations and build a shared base before moving forward. The intention is right, but the experience can be damaging, especially for students whose confidence is fragile.

For a student encountering content for the first time, it can be unnerving if they’re surrounded by others who find it easy. For a student who found it easy, it can feel like a year of standing still.

Students told us this directly. One said: “It’s too easy and I get bored of waiting for everyone else.” Another said the opposite: “I find it stressful when teachers move too quickly.” Both experiences can happen to the same student, and both erode the joy they find in maths.

Loss of confidence

The second factor is confidence. A loss of confidence is harder to spot because students rarely announce it. When a student starts to lose confidence, they show it instead through how they act. They put their hand up less, and their willingness to persist when something is difficult fades.

Despite starting secondary school at the same academic standard as their peers, students facing disadvantage consistently report lower confidence throughout Year 7. We measured this through their response to the statement: “I usually learn maths quickly.” This gap is widening right now, in classrooms up and down the country.

This is not yet an attainment gap. It’s something that precedes attainment and sets the downward trend.

A confidence gap opening in the Easter term will influence who is still engaging with maths at 16 - and may help to explain why, every year, around 30,000 high-attaining pupils at the end of primary school don’t go on to achieve a top GCSE grade in maths.

Behaviour inequality

Finally, classroom behaviour affects how students feel about maths.

By the end of Year 7, productive behaviours have measurably declined. The proportion of students reporting that their class listens well drops from 43 per cent to 37 per cent, and the proportion reporting that students work well together falls from 37 per cent to 29 per cent.

Meanwhile, disruptive behaviours increase.

This shift doesn’t happen equally. Disadvantaged pupils are significantly more likely to report that their classmates are messing around and talking when they shouldn’t be, and they are far less likely to experience maths discussions or debates, too. They are experiencing a very different classroom with fewer opportunities to engage with the richness of the subject.

What should schools do?

A predictable pattern is often a preventable one.

The summer term is when important action can be taken to turn these attitudes around. A student whose confidence has taken a knock since January has not yet decided anything permanent. The enthusiasm is still there; around half of high-attaining students say they like, love or enjoy maths. Their intrigue just needs protecting.

This means asking some honest questions before the end of term.

Which students arrived in September looking confident, and are quieter now? Where are students learning something new, and where does it feel like repetition? What is the classroom climate for your most disadvantaged students, and how do you know?

The answer to these challenges is not easier maths. In many cases, the answer is richer, more challenging mathematical experiences that give students a reason to believe the subject is worth their time and identity.

It’s giving them problems that both stump and grip them. It is asking them to go deeper - to show how many ways there are to solve a problem and prove they’ve found them all, or to set a problem where they must prove there is no solution.

The goal is to reignite the enthusiasm that every student brought through the door in September.

David Thomas is CEO of Axiom Maths

Express your interest in becoming an Axiom Maths partner school in September 2026 by clicking .

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