“I’m just not a maths person.” If you teach, you’ve heard this from students more times than you can count. The phrase sounds like a fixed identity, but it’s actually a coping strategy — a way for a child to protect themselves from the discomfort of not understanding something in front of their peers. The good news is that maths anxiety is learned, which means it can be unlearned. The even better news is that the classroom teacher is often the person best placed to do it.
Why Maths Anxiety Takes Root
Maths anxiety rarely starts with the maths itself. It starts with an experience — a moment of public confusion, a timed test that felt like a threat, a well-meaning adult who said “don’t worry, I was never good at maths either.” The child’s brain files maths under “danger” rather than “challenge,” and from that point on, their working memory — the mental workspace they need to actually solve problems — gets hijacked by anxiety before they’ve even picked up a pencil.
Research consistently shows that maths anxiety reduces working memory capacity. The child isn’t struggling because they can’t do the maths. They’re struggling because their brain is too busy managing threat to do the maths. This distinction matters enormously for how we respond as teachers.
What Doesn’t Work
Timed drills for anxious learners. Speed-based maths activities reinforce the message that maths is about performance under pressure. For confident students, timed activities can be energising. For anxious ones, they’re a weekly reminder that they’re behind. If you use timed elements, make them optional or self-paced rather than competitive.
“Just try harder.” Effort-based encouragement without strategy is frustrating for a child who genuinely doesn’t know what to do differently. Telling an anxious student to try harder is like telling someone with a fear of heights to just look down. The intention is kind. The effect isn’t.
Avoiding struggle entirely. The opposite extreme — making everything so easy that no child ever gets stuck — doesn’t build confidence either. It builds fragility. Children need productive struggle, but they need it scaffolded, supported, and normalised.
Five Strategies That Build Genuine Confidence
1. Normalise mistakes publicly
When you work through a problem on the board, make a deliberate mistake and correct it out loud. “Wait — that’s not right. Let me think about why.” This models the process every mathematician actually uses and takes the shame out of getting things wrong. The goal isn’t to trick students. It’s to show them that mistakes are part of thinking, not proof of failure.
2. Separate understanding from speed
Give students time to think before asking for answers. Use “think-pair-share” — a few seconds of individual thinking, a quick discussion with a partner, then sharing with the class. This removes the pressure of being the first to raise a hand and gives processing time to students who need it. Speed is not the same as understanding, and the classroom culture should reflect that.
3. Use multiple representations
The same concept explained three different ways reaches three different types of learner. Concrete objects (blocks, counters, measuring tools), visual models (bar models, number lines, diagrams), and abstract notation — moving between all three builds deeper understanding than any single approach. If a child is stuck on the abstract, go back to the concrete. That’s not regression. That’s good teaching.
4. Praise the process, not the answer
“I can see you tried two different approaches before you found one that worked — that’s exactly what mathematicians do.” Process praise builds a growth mindset around maths. Answer praise (“You got it right! You’re so clever!”) inadvertently teaches children that their worth is in the outcome, which makes them afraid to attempt anything they might get wrong.
5. Connect maths to things they already care about
Baking involves fractions. Gaming involves probability and statistics. Sport involves measurement and data. Building involves geometry. When children see maths as something that connects to their world rather than an abstract exercise with no purpose, engagement shifts. You don’t need elaborate real-world projects — even a brief “here’s where you’d use this” framing helps.
Going Deeper
These strategies are starting points. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive framework — including differentiation strategies, assessment approaches that reduce anxiety, and practical lesson structures — Tracy Schultz’s Confident Parent, Confident Child covers the home-school connection, while her The BRIDGE Protocol provides a structured approach to inclusive classroom practice that applies directly to maths teaching.
Both are available on Tracy’s author page or on Amazon. The Empowered Educator Series is written by a practitioner for practitioners — practical, evidence-informed, and designed to be used on Monday morning, not just read and shelved.
Keep reading: What Does a Book Editor Actually Do? (And Do You Need One?).
This post draws on themes from Tracy Schultz’s Empowered Educator Series, published by Heppe-Smith Publishing. Tracy writes about classroom practice, behaviour management, and building confidence in every learner.