Use and Impact of TIMSS
England has taken part in all TIMSS cycles, allowing comparisons over time of mathematics and science achievement among its Year 5 and Year 9 students.
In TIMSS 2011, England maintained the relatively high levels of performance seen in TIMSS 2007. England also continued to show gender equality in mathematics and science achievement. There were some areas of the curriculum in which students in England performed well and others in which they did less well. These areas varied in 2011 compared with the differences seen in TIMSS 2007. There was a notable decline in student performance in primary science. Student attitudes toward mathematics and science did not vary greatly; essentially, those who were more confident in the subjects tended to perform better. Some students had teachers who were not specialists in mathematics and/or science. In all cycles of TIMSS, teachers reported feeling very well prepared to teach mathematics and/or science. Teachers’ reported levels of career satisfaction were similar to or higher than those of teachers in the highest achieving countries. Teachers rated their working conditions relatively positively compared with other countries.23
In return for participating in TIMSS, sample schools receive confidential feedback, drawn from the student background questionnaire, which they can use to support school and professional development. They also are invited to take part in a TIMSS schools conference, where their educators have an opportunity to discuss the national results and share ideas on improvement with their peers.
At the level of policy, findings from TIMSS (together with those from other international benchmark studies) have been used to identify high performing and fast improving countries that England may look to for ideas for improving policy and practice. In 2013, the Department for Education launched an £11 million Maths Hubs program designed to improve the quality of mathematics instruction and scale up best practice. A key strand of the Maths Hubs program has been to set up a primary and secondary teacher exchange program with China, which began in 2014. The National Centre for the Excellence in Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) is working with individual mathematics hubs to enable lesson sharing on a national level, including teaching approaches from China. An evaluation of the exchange program is due to be published in 2016.
In science, TIMSS has been used to inform the development of national Key Stage 2 science sample tests by the Standards and Testing Agency. Additionally, the TIMSS report and questionnaires have been embedded into continuous professional development courses and materials developed for schools and science teachers by the National STEM Learning Centre and Network. These materials are available to help teachers make informed decisions about how to improve teaching and learning in mathematics and science.