Insights into education: TIMSS findings

The national report for England and research relating to TIMSS 2023 is being led by an expert team at the UCL Institute of Education (UCL) who are exploring the data beyond the scores – we want to investigate ways that the results from TIMSS can help teachers and learners in schools in England. We’re currently exploring important information about teaching and learning to understand what is working well: for example, Figure 1 below shows the mathematics performance of year 5 pupils in England and how it has improved between 1995 and 2019.

Figure 1: Trend in average mathematics score – year 5 (England)

England’s participation in TIMSS provides valuable information about students’ absolute and relative performance. Figure 2 is an example of some of these other data showing differences in the average achievement of Year 9 pupils related to their attitudes towards mathematics and science. It shows, for example, that there is a spread of 123 points in mathematics achievement between year 9 boys with low confidence in their ability in mathematics, and those with high confidence.

Figure 2: Differences in average achievement in mathematics by pupil attitude and gender (England, Year 9) 