What Teachers Can Do When Students Say “I’m Just Not Good at Maths”

Dr Sam is a qualified Mathematics and Physics Teacher with a Master's degree in Physics, UK Qualified Teacher Status, and over 20 years of tutoring experience across GCSE and A-Level. He specialises in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Further Mathematics at KS3, KS4 and KS5, covering AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC. Nine out of ten of his students achieve Grade 8 or 9.

Here, he explores one of the most important questions in mathematics education, and what teachers and parents can do about it.

Teaching Mathematical Resilience

By Dr Sam | Mathematics and Physics Teacher | Sherpa Tutor

It's the sentence that makes every Maths teacher pause:

“I’m just not good at Maths.”

It sounds like a statement about ability. Often, however, it is a statement about experience.

A student may have encountered repeated failure, confusing explanations, time pressure, mathematics anxiety, comparison with classmates, or a long history of believing that some people are simply “maths people” and others are not.

The teacher's challenge is, therefore, bigger than correcting an answer. It is to help the learner reinterpret difficulty.

This is where mathematical resilience becomes important: the capacity to remain engaged with mathematical difficulty, adapt strategies, learn from errors, seek help and continue reasoning when the solution is not immediately obvious.

It does not mean telling students to “try harder” indefinitely. Resilience without effective teaching can lead to frustration. Students need appropriate knowledge, strategies, feedback, support and opportunities to experience productive challenge.

Why This Matters

Mathematics is cumulative. A misunderstanding of fractions can later complicate algebra; weak algebraic manipulation can make GCSE Physics and, later, calculus and statistics (core topics in A-Level Maths) unnecessarily intimidating.

There is also a psychological dimension. Research has established an association between mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievement, although the relationship is complex and influenced by multiple factors.

This means that when a student says, “I hate maths,” the most productive response may not be another worksheet.

It may begin with a question:

“What happens in your mind when you see a difficult Maths question?”

The answer can reveal whether the barrier is conceptual understanding, confidence, anxiety, previous experience, ineffective study habits - or several of these at once.

From Fixed Identity to Developing Competence

A powerful classroom shift is to move students away from defining themselves by their present performance.

Instead of:

“I am bad at algebra.”

Teach:

“I am currently struggling with algebraic manipulation.”

The difference is subtle but educationally significant.

The first becomes an identity. The second identifies a learnable problem.

But teachers should be careful not to turn “growth mindset” into another slogan. Evidence does not support the simplistic idea that merely telling students that their brains can grow automatically produces large improvements in attainment. 

For example, an Education Endowment Foundation trial found promising but statistically uncertain effects from growth-mindset workshops, while teacher professional development alone did not produce additional mathematics progress in that trial.

The lesson is important:

Mindset matters, but mindset must be connected to good mathematics teaching.

What Can a Teacher Actually Do?

1. Replace judgement with diagnosis

When a student says: “I can't do this” - avoid immediately responding, “Yes, you can!”

Instead ask:

“Which part can you do?”

Give the student a problem with several stages. Identify where the reasoning breaks down.

Perhaps they understand substitution but not rearranging equations. Perhaps they understand the formula but cannot identify which quantities belong in it.

Now the problem has changed from: “I am bad at maths” to “I need to strengthen this particular skill.”

That is a much more teachable problem.

2. Make mistakes mathematically useful

A wrong answer should not automatically close the discussion.

Ask:

1. What did you try?
2. Where did your method change direction?
3. Which step do you trust?
4. What evidence suggests the answer is unreasonable?
5. Can you find another method?

In mathematics, an error can expose the structure of a student's thinking.

A teacher who only supplies the correct answer may fix today's exercise without necessarily improving tomorrow's reasoning.

3. Teach students how to struggle

Resilient mathematicians do not simply persist randomly.

They change strategy.

For example, if a GCSE student cannot solve an unfamiliar geometry problem in GCSE Maths, productive persistence might mean drawing an additional line, identifying known angles, writing down relevant theorems, working backwards, estimating the answer or asking a precise question.

The objective is not: “Keep trying the same thing”, it is “keep reasoning, but be prepared to change the method.”

Recent research on mathematical mindset and self-regulated learning similarly points towards the importance of strategy adjustment, reflection and persistence rather than effort alone.

Mathematics Beyond the Classroom

Mathematical resilience is not merely an examination skill.

Scientists routinely confront incomplete datasets.

Engineers encounter models that initially fail.

Climate scientists work with uncertainty.

Astronomers analyse signals buried in noise.

Economists test models against evidence that may contradict their assumptions.

Consider atmospheric science. Suppose researchers are analysing temperature measurements from several sensors. One instrument produces a value that appears inconsistent with the others. 

A resilient scientific response is not to declare, “I am not good at data analysis.”

Researchers investigate:

1. Is the sensor calibrated? 
2. Is there an environmental effect? 
3. Is the measurement an outlier? 
4. Is the model inadequate?

Mathematical thinking develops through precisely this willingness to investigate uncertainty rather than fear it. The classroom can cultivate the same disposition.

The Deeper Lesson for Teachers

We should not romanticise struggle.

Some students struggle because they need a clearer explanation. Others need prerequisite knowledge. Some need more guided practice; others need greater challenge. A student experiencing significant mathematics anxiety may need support that goes beyond mathematical instruction.

Even apparently sensible interventions do not always work as expected. An EEF trial of short pre-teaching sessions in early mathematics, for example, found no measurable improvement in mathematical reasoning or mathematics-related anxiety, despite teachers reporting increased confidence and engagement.

This is a valuable reminder for educators:

• Good intentions are not the same as evidence of effectiveness.
• We should observe, assess, intervene, evaluate - and adjust.

Five Actions Teachers Can Use Immediately

1. Diagnose before remediating: Find the precise conceptual barrier.
2. Praise mathematical behaviours, not fixed traits: Recognise useful strategies, reasoning, checking and revision.
3. Normalise productive uncertainty: Make it acceptable to say, “I don't know yet.”
4. Teach multiple representations: Move between symbols, diagrams, graphs, tables, words and physical situations.
5. Build reflection into problem-solving: Ask students not only “What is the answer?” but “Why does this method work?”

A Final Question

Perhaps the most important question is not:

“How do we make students better at mathematics?”

It is:

“How do we help students remain mathematically engaged long enough to become better?”

A student who currently cannot solve a quadratic equation is not a failed mathematician. They are a learner standing at a particular point in a mathematical journey.

Our responsibility as teachers is to make that point visible, identify the next step, provide the right tools - and give the student enough intellectual safety to take it.

Because “I’m not good at maths” should never be treated as a final diagnosis. It should be treated as the beginning of a better conversation.