Improving Working Memory Plus Arithmetic

The Improving Working Memory plus Arithmetic programme seeks to improve working memory and arithmetic skills for pupils in Year 3 (aged 7 to 8). It supports children to organise information about numbers, addition, and subtraction in their long-term memory. It is a targeted intervention aimed at low-attaining pupils. The intervention is delivered through weekly one-hour, one to one sessions. There are five sessions focused on working memory and five focused on arithmetic, all delivered by a teaching assistant (TA). During each session, the TA works for half an hour with one child while a second child plays specially designed online games. After half an hour, the children swap activities. The content of the activities varies. In the working memory games, there are a range of tasks. Examples include tasks where children must process the information in a sentence and recall the last word and tasks where children must reverse the order in which the items were presented. The numerical tasks require the use of counting on, additive composition, and the inverse relation between operations in different contexts and games. The level of difficulty of tasks increases progressively. TAs are expected to help children learn various strategies during their interactions while the games enable the children to practice the strategies independently. Each TA is supported by a link teacher in the school. The TA and link teacher receive two days of training, delivered by ‘teacher leaders’. The first day focuses on working memory, the second on arithmetic. The two days are several weeks apart. Each TA receives a visit from a teacher leader to support delivery and provide quality assurance. TAs also receive implementation handbooks for the programme. The evaluation was a two-arm randomised controlled trial involving 201 schools and 1,995 pupils in total; at analysis stage there were 1,417 pupils in 184 schools. The implementation and process evaluation aimed to understand how well the intervention was implemented in schools as well as how the training model worked. This project and its evaluation were affected by the 2020 and 2021 partial school closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The trial was originally commissioned in January 2019 but the closure of schools as a result of the pandemic meant that the trial did not start until the 2021/2022 academic year.