Teaching assistants are teaching classes in maths for continuous periods as long as a year owing to a crisis in the recruitment of qualified maths teachers, it is claimed.

Research from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) last week laid bare the severity of the crisis when it revealed that half of GCSE maths teachers don’t have a maths or sciences degree. 

But today, the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM) reveals a “hidden problem” where key stage 3 maths classes are, in some cases, being taught for the whole academic year by teaching assistants or learning mentors.

“It is perhaps fair to add that some of these people have the potential to be superb teachers given some subject knowledge training but that would mean that teaching was no longer officially a graduate profession,” says Corinne Angier, ATM honorary secretary.

She added: “You will really struggle to find a school that admits to this. A school in Leeds advertised last year for non-teachers to teach maths and got such a massive negative attack in the press and on social media that I don’t think anywhere would do it publically again.”

Ms Angier said today that the problem was mainly in schools which were in special measures which, as such, are prevented from employing NQTs.

She said: “Maths teachers tend to leave when a school goes into special measures because there are so many other schools to work in, so the school then has to rely on teachers of other subjects or learning mentors and TAs in some cases.

“The problem is very much hidden as the schools don’t want to admit it. I know of some schools who have advertised for a maths teacher who haven’t had a single applicant.”

She added: “The DfE needs a model to show where trainee maths teachers are coming from and how they are going to support them in training, and how they are going to ensure ongoing support.”

The EPI research also found that only 50 per cent of maths teachers were still working in state-funded schools in England five years after starting training.