Special Educational Needs: Dyscalculia

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bull]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what provision is in place in schools for identifying and supporting students who have special educational needs, particularly dyscalculia.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to introduce this debate, the first in either House to focus on dyscalculia, and I look forward to the contributions of all noble Lords on a range of educational needs and disabilities. I am grateful to the Dyscalculia Network, Michela Barbieri, Professors Brian Butterworth and Jo Van Herwegen and Doctors Kinga Morsanyi and Carla Finesilver, on whose work I will draw.

Two years ago, Rishi Sunak announced his “maths to 18” proposal, and my 10 year-old great-niece lost no time in explaining the impact it would have on pupils like her who struggle with maths. Till then, I had never heard of dyscalculia, and I soon discovered I was not alone. Everyone I asked returned the same blank stare. Dyslexia, yes. Dyscalculia? No.

I found no definition of dyscalculia on the DfE website and no guidance for parents and teachers, and no mention in the NHS A to Z of conditions, although dyslexia and dyspraxia are there. Hansard records that while 459 MPs and Peers have raised dyslexia, only 13 have ever mentioned dyscalculia. My biggest surprise was to find that teachers—even maths teachers—do not learn about dyscalculia while training, despite prevalence rates of one in 20 suggesting there is at least one dyscalculic child in every classroom across the UK. With similar rates to dyslexia and impacts as severe, dyscalculia’s low profile is hard to explain.

Dyscalculia is a specific neurodevelopment condition with a biological basis. You are born with it, and it lasts throughout life. Maths learning difficulties exist on a spectrum, but the 2025 SASC guidance says that the defining factor in dyscalculia is

“a pronounced and persistent difficulty with processing numerical magnitude”,

despite adequate intellectual ability and age-appropriate education. Put simply, dyscalculic pupils are more likely than typical learners to struggle to understand place values and the ordering and structure of numbers. This can affect their ability to recognise which of two numbers is greater, even when they are orders of magnitude apart, such as 100 and 10,000.

For most of us, this is hard to imagine; we take for granted that adding two numbers makes a larger one, but for someone with dyscalculia it is as nonsensical as suggesting that adding A to B results in a larger letter. They may also fail to intuit number-pattern links—for example, needing to count the corners of the square to know there are four. As a result, dyscalculics may rely on finger counting and struggle to remember number-based facts or estimate quantities. These challenges spill over into other subjects and everyday tasks such as managing time and money.

Without effective intervention, dyscalculia is likely to impact educational, career and even health outcomes, and it is not a massive leap to surmise that the well-evidenced effects of low numeracy could be even more significant for those with dyscalculia, particularly as they are so rarely diagnosed and supported. Most experts agree that targeted interventions improve outcomes, and the earlier they start, the more effective they will be. Mathematical development is like a staircase—each step depends on the one below.

But early intervention depends on early identification, and formal diagnosis is rare—a dyslexic child is 100 times more likely to be diagnosed. Dyscalculics say diagnosis helps them get the right support, understand their struggles and avoid the shame of being labelled “stupid” or “lazy”, but the £900 cost is often beyond reach. This points to school as the place where dyscalculia might first be identified, underlining the pivotal role of SENCOs and teachers.

The Government’s position is that all teachers are teachers of special educational needs. The new framework for initial teacher training and early careers deliberately does not detail approaches specific to particular additional needs but prioritises high-quality teaching as key to addressing SEND. Schools are required to identify needs and implement personalised support plans that meet the unique needs of individual pupils. In principle, this approach is laudable; in practice, it works only if all teachers and SENCOs can recognise specific learning difficulties and are up to date on interventions for support.

For dyscalculia, this is not the case. A 2023 study found that 43% of teachers were not familiar at all or only slightly familiar with dyscalculia, and both teachers and SENCOs are likely to harbour myths about the condition. A study this year found no relation between knowledge about dyscalculia and years spent teaching, indicating that knowledge is not required through daily work and highlighting the importance of CPD. This is doubly concerning, because while the new framework does contain more content relevant to supporting students with SEN, it implies that learning about specific needs will be covered primarily during school placements, whereas, as we know, knowledge and awareness are likely to be low.

This is not a criticism of schools and educators—rather, of the inherent logical lacuna in government’s approach. In a climate of low awareness, and absent any training on dyscalculia and how it manifests, how can this condition-blind approach to teacher training deliver a learning experience that meets the unique needs of dyscalculic pupils?

I ask the Minister: how will the Government review the effectiveness of the framework in delivering for pupils with specific learning difficulties? Will they consider dyscalculia screening alongside the year 1 phonics check to enable early intervention? Will they review the take-up of the relevant CPD and promote the use of educational resources such as UCL’s ADD UP toolkit?

Throughout the school journey, standard maths teaching and assessment unintentionally disadvantage dyscalculic pupils because of the sheer volume of content and pressure to get to the right answer fast. Research suggests that the best methods to teach dyscalculic pupils have no place in the classroom for typical learners: they take time, focus on fundamentals and often involve revisiting material the wider class covered years earlier. Assigning a teaching assistant to work one-to-one on what the others are learning en masse is unlikely to work. The TA may well not be aware of dyscalculia, and just trying harder is not the answer to a learning difficulty.

But perhaps the biggest barrier to the dyscalculic learner is maths GCSE, which functions as a gatekeeper to A-levels, to all manner of degree courses and even to careers in the Armed Forces. In 2024, 40% of students in England failed maths GCSE and, at resit, 80% failed again. This dispiriting cycle of repeated failure impacts mental health and creates barriers to opportunity that may even breach the Equality Act 2010. The case for reform has been made by the OCR exam board and the Science and Technology Committee of this House. Will the Government listen to growing calls to introduce accessible alternatives to maths qualifications that focus instead on functional skills and real-world numeracy?

In repeatedly highlighting differences with dyslexia, I do not suggest that one condition be prioritised over another but, rather, that research and understanding of dyscalculia lags 30 years behind. Will the Government commit to closing the funding gap between dyslexia and dyscalculia? Will the DfE move to collect differentiated data on specific learning difficulties so that we can see dyscalculia prevalence and co-occurrence? We cannot know what we do not measure.

Over the last two years, I have come to suspect that dyscalculia suffers because of a societal acceptance of poor numeracy that we would not countenance for literacy. We would never accept that a child could not learn to read and write, and yet being bad at maths is seen as normal. Literacy and numeracy are equally important to life chances, but literacy is so often prioritised. Indeed, the new teacher training framework has multiple mentions of literacy and nothing on numeracy. It is deeply ironic how often successive Governments point to the importance of STEM in addressing the challenges of growth, innovation and productivity, while failing to grasp the UK’s stubborn problem with low numeracy, which affects over half the adult population.

It is against this backdrop that dyscalculic children must try to have their needs identified, understood and met. Some have the great fortune of supportive parents or a teacher who gets it, but others do not. Even where there is support, we should not underestimate the isolation, stress and anxiety of learning with dyscalculia. I do not doubt the intentions of the Government or the commitment of schools and teachers, but unless steps are taken to increase the awareness and under- standing of dyscalculia among policymakers, educators and the wider community, dyscalculic learners will continue to have the odds stacked against them.

Some 17 years ago, the Government Office for Science recommended that, because of its low profile and high impacts, dyscalculia should be raised as a government priority. The Government then, and Governments since, have all failed to act. I ask the Minister: will this Government be the one that make the difference?