Jude Boyd has been a primary teacher for 20 years and loves maths. She has also been used to her pupils performing well in the subject and really enjoying it.

But last year she found herself “despairing” because, while her Year 6 children at The British International School Bratislava seemed reasonably comfortable with numbers, they were struggling to apply their learning when it came to problem solving, and this was reflected in their scores on standardised assessments.

She says: “They could do the number stuff and then they would come to a problem and they just seemed to think, ‘Oh, this is difficult.’ They didn’t have any resilience. It wasn’t an issue I’d had before - it was specific to that class.”

The ‘metacognition superpower card’

Therefore, when Boyd was asked to take forward an action research project on metacognition, as part of Nord Anglia Education’s wider push to help pupils “think better” by building their metacognitive skills, it was immediately clear to her that the focus should be on maths and improving the perseverance of her Year 6 pupils.

She began by ensuring that her class understood what metacognition is - Boyd defines metacognition as “thinking about thinking” and “being the boss of your brain”.

Boyd then explicitly taught her Year 6 pupils a strategy to help them tackle challenging maths problems by giving them five questions they could refer to when they started to struggle.

Boyd put the questions on a card - which she called the “metacognition superpower card” - and gave a copy to every pupil.

The five prompts were:

• What am I being asked to do?
• What do I already know?
• How could I do this?
• What could help me?
• Have I done what I was asked?
   

Then in maths lessons, Boyd used the card “relentlessly”.

“It was very visual,” she says. “I’d have the card on every slide for maths; I had big ones on the wall; I had them on a washing line across the classroom. Every child had one in their tray and then we decided to stick them on the desks so they would be there permanently.

“I said to them, ‘You need to ask yourself these questions because I’m not able to be there all the time. And, in an assessment, you need to be able to do it independently.’”

The goal was for the questions to become “embedded in their psyche” and “second nature” so that going through them before seeking help - or throwing in the towel - was routine.

Boyd continues: “It became the little person on their shoulder prompting them.

“I had many students who would always want me, one for confidence, two for explanation. Once I introduced the card, I could say, ‘Have you used your superpower card yet?’

“There were obviously times when I had to intervene, but you want to try to make it so you can ask more questions of your greater-depth children and support the ones who are struggling a bit.”

Impact on attitude and outcomes

Over time, as the card bedded in, the pupils became more willing to try to break down a tricky problem in maths independently, and they started to enjoy problem solving rather than seeing it as something to avoid.

What’s more, Boyd says, pupils also began to use the card questions with each other when working together on maths, and their enthusiasm for the subject increased.

The card has also had a clear impact on outcomes, too.

In March, before the superpower card was introduced, the 20 pupils in the class (11 boys and nine girls) sat Progress in Understanding Mathematics Assessments (PUMA).

This was then repeated in May, at which point 85 per cent of pupils showed improvement in their PUMA score.

Furthermore, the proportion of children classed as “working at greater depth” rose from 35 per cent to 50 per cent.

Boyd says she had, of course, hoped for a positive impact but the results exceeded her expectations. “I just thought, ‘It’s a simple thing. I didn’t expect all of that.’”

Yet with concerns among teachers about pupils’ attention spans and ability to focus, it may be that her “simple” intervention could spark much interest.

Instilling good habits early

However, it is not a panacea. This year Boyd is teaching a Year 3 class and they also have the superpower card stuck to their desks, but it is not proving quite as effective with these younger children.

“Some of them can’t read very well yet - they’re only seven years old - so asking them to refer to the card isn’t as effective, but it’s still there and we refer to it and use it,” she says.

Instilling these positive habits early is, nonetheless, worthwhile, says Boyd, who believes the impact could be significant as they progress through school.

“If we start teaching them about how to learn better at this age, imagine what they will be like when they are 11 or 12,” she says - although Boyd also flags that in international schools, building skills over time is more complicated because they tend to serve more transient populations.

“If I’ve taught a class in Year 2 of 20 students by the time they get to Year 6, there can be just two students left of the original class. That wouldn’t happen in the UK - most of them would still be there in Year 6.”

Still, Boyd found that the superpower card could make an impact in just a few short months, and with her Year 6 pupils it also started to improve other areas of their learning, such as tackling reading comprehension.

Furthermore, it gave children “a system for approaching a problem” that, she suggests, could help in all facets of their lives.

“The superpower is for them to be able to think for themselves.”