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OMT News - Developments in Maths Teaching (October 2026)

Writer: Marek Swistun
Marek Swistun
Oct 19
2 min read

Updated: Oct 21


1. A new national curriculum is on its way

England’s schools are getting their first full curriculum update in more than a decade. The final version is due in spring 2027, and teaching it begins in September 2028.

For maths, the government has said it will review the primary curriculum and re-order content, especially number work. Over a quarter of children currently don’t reach the expected standard in maths by age 11. The aim is to help children understand the basics properly before moving on to harder ideas.

What it means for you: Nothing changes in classrooms yet. Schools will have four terms to prepare once the final version is published.


2. AI tutors are being tested in schools

The government plans to bring AI maths tutoring tools into schools, designed with teachers. Trials in secondary schools begin during 2026, and the tools are due to be available to schools by the end of 2027. For Years 9 to 11 alone, the government says they could support up to 450,000 pupils a year who are on free school meals. The idea is to give more children the kind of one-to-one help that wealthier families can already pay for.

Experts have said the evidence for AI tutoring is still very young. The government says the tools are meant to support face-to-face teaching, not replace it.

My take: It’s a promising idea, but we don’t yet know how well it works.


3. The “Nobel Prize of maths” went to four new winners

The 2026 Fields Medals were announced in July. The winners are Yu Deng, John Pardon, Jacob Tsimerman and Hong Wang. Hong Wang is only the third woman ever to win.

Two of the stories are easy to picture:

  • Hong Wang, working with colleague Joshua Zahl, solved the three-dimensional version of a puzzle (the Kakeya conjecture) first posed in 1917. It asks how little room you need to turn a thin needle so that it points in every possible direction.

  • Yu Deng helped show how the behaviour of a gas follows from the motion of its countless tiny colliding particles.

Elsewhere, this year’s Abel Prize went to Gerd Faltings for his work on when certain equations have only a limited number of fraction solutions.


4. For teachers and the curious

The British Congress of Mathematics Education takes place on 23-24 October at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham. It’s the first since 2018, and its theme is teachers and researchers working together.

Thanks for reading. If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover next time, just reply.


Disclaimer: This newsletter is a plain-English summary of publicly reported news, written on 19 October 2026. Details may have changed since, and despite checking, errors or oversimplifications may remain. Please check the original sources before relying on anything here, especially for decisions about your own or your child’s education.


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