SPI Maths insights

How SPI Maths turns diagnosis into targeted action.

SPI Maths is not designed to leave teachers with more data to interpret. The insight layer links each diagnosed weakness to practical next steps: mini-lessons, intervention tasks, online practice, CPD prompts and reassessment.

Jump to targeted actions

The missing step

Reports only matter if they change what happens next.

Many assessment systems stop at identifying a gap. SPI Maths is built around the next decision: what should a teacher teach, assign, revisit or delay because of what the assessment has revealed?

The goal is to remove guesswork. A teacher should not have to translate a diagnostic report into a resource hunt at the end of a busy day. The report should point towards a focused action that fits the specific mathematical literacy weakness.

Targeted actions

Specific support for specific weaknesses.

SPI Maths actions are deliberately narrow. The point is not "do more algebra"; it is "teach the missing structure that is stopping this algebra from making sense."

Ready-to-teach mini-lessons

Short PowerPoints and teacher scripts explain a specific structure, such as terms as signed values, factors and products, brackets as nesting, or equations as truth.

Focused intervention packs

Narrow intervention tasks target one barrier at a time, with examples, non-examples, misconception questions, pupil practice and a reassessment task.

Online pupil practice

Interactive explanations, diagnostic quizzes, card sorts, highlighting tasks and retrieval practice can be assigned to the pupils who need them.

Department CPD prompts

When reports reveal a common issue, SPI Maths can point maths leads towards the department explanation or CPD theme that will improve consistency.

From finding to action

Every diagnosis should lead somewhere useful.

SPI Maths links report findings to resource sets. A weakness can point to a pupil explanation, a short teaching PowerPoint, a mini quiz, a worked example sheet, a misconception task, a teacher note, a retrieval activity and a reassessment point.

This is what makes the system workload-sensitive: the teacher still makes the professional decision, but the options are already organised around the most likely cause of the difficulty.

Weakness: identifying terms in sums with negative terms

Teach "Terms as Signed Values"
Use card sorting: terms, factors and expressions
Run mini whiteboard checks on signed terms
Reassess with a short Sums Check

Weakness: identifying factors in products

Teach "Factors and Products"
Compare products with sums using non-examples
Practise products with bracketed factors
Assign a factors versus terms quiz

Weakness: equations as truth-bearing statements

Teach "Equations as Truth"
Sort expressions, equations and inequalities
Identify valid and invalid equation moves
Reassess before rearranging formulae

Classroom actions

Small changes in explanation can unlock bigger topics.

Use colour or cards so signed terms move as intact objects.
Ask pupils to name the structure before performing the procedure.
Compare examples and non-examples to expose the misconception.
Use mini whiteboards for fast checks on a single literacy action.
Delay a procedural topic briefly when the required structure is fragile.
Group pupils by the missing idea, not by a broad test score.

Department actions

Shared weaknesses become shared improvement priorities.

If a pattern appears across a year group, the best action may not be another intervention group. It may be a curriculum adjustment, a common department explanation, or a CPD session that helps teachers use the same structural language.

Mathematics as structured languageMoving beyond BIDMASTeaching sums and signed termsTeaching products and factorsBrackets as nestingEquations as truth-preserving statementsUsing SPI reports to plan intervention

Example pathway

The priority is not always the topic pupils got wrong.

If a Year 8 class performs poorly on collecting like terms, the immediate temptation is to give more collecting-like-terms practice. SPI Maths may show that the real problem is earlier: pupils are not reading terms as signed values.

The targeted action is then structural: teach signed terms, use card sorting and mini whiteboard checks, practise grouping terms, then reassess. Once that foundation is stronger, equation solving and expansion have a better chance of sticking.

Weak action:Practise algebra.SPI action: Use "Terms as Signed Values", assign "Identify Terms in Sums", then reassess with a short Sums Check.

Pilot study

Use the pilot to test the full workflow.

The pilot is a chance to judge more than the assessment. Schools can evaluate whether the reports lead to sensible actions, whether those actions save time, and whether reassessment shows movement in pupils' mathematical literacy.

Explore the pilot