The REASONING FIRST core team is composed by Gabriel Stylianides, Professor of Mathematics Education, Terezinha Nunes, Emeritus Professor of Educational Studies, and Louise Matthews, an experienced leader of educational projects and author of the series of books about Martha, the Mathemagician. Our research underpinning the REASONING FIRST programmes has received support from the EEF, DfE, The Nuffield Foundation, ESRC, British Academy and the Royal Society, among other institutions. The REASONING FIRST programmes are supported by the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and Oxford University Innovation.
Our mission
We are a group of researchers and teachers with a background in different disciplines who have studied teaching and learning of many concepts and ideas with both children and adults. Our mission is to promote educational success for all children by creating opportunities for schools, teachers, and children to access research-based teaching programmes.
We recognise that there are different ways of thinking about how to teach anything and that different learning paths can lead to different places. A research-based approach to teaching can provide teachers with enough confidence about the path they chose, which in turn can allow them to focus more on their children’s thinking and learning.
Like Nelson Mandela, we believe that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” and we want to bring this power to teachers and children to learn through reasoning. The world is changing quickly, and this is also true of the world of knowledge. In order for today’s education to be useful tomorrow, children must learn not only what is in the curriculum, which is important, but it is also important to learn to reason about what is in the curriculum; what is in the curriculum can change but the ability to reason remains as a life-long skill.
Our programmes
Our programmes support teachers and TAs through professional development, structured lessons using pre-prepared PowerPoints and ready to use materials for child
Mathematical Reasoning (Year 2)
Reasoning About Fractions (Year 4)
