The International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE) has awarded the prestigious ISDDE Prize for Excellence in Educational Design, or “Eddie”, to Geoffrey Wake, Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham, and the Mastering Maths team. The prize, funded by the Bell Burkhardt Daro Shell Centre Trust, is given annually to recognize excellence in design for education in mathematics, science or technology.

Professor Wake received the 2025 Eddie for his work leading the team that designed the Mastering Maths project. This research and design project, centered at the University of Nottingham over the past decade, has focused on the problem of students who fail to achieve a passing mark in the public examination in mathematics taken at the age of 16, and for whom subsequent remediation has met with limited success. The team iteratively designed and tested a comprehensive set of teacher and student supports, including teacher training materials, lesson study toolkits, lesson materials, and lesson videos. The results of this effort were tested in a randomised controlled trial which detected improved outcomes equivalent to one month of additional learning for students taught by teachers who had taken part in the most intensive intervention programme, with even stronger results for students who came from a disadvantaged background. The design team paid significant attention to issues of scaling up the program, working to create materials that support the dissemination of the approach well beyond the project participants. 

The award was announced at the Society’s annual conference at the University of Galway, Ireland. In his acceptance speech Geoff acknowledged the contributions of his team members including Marie Joubert, Diane Dalby, Clare Dawson, Marc North, Matt Woodford and Corinne Robinson. Geoff also noted that the project builds on decades of work at Nottingham including the efforts of the late Malcom Swan, who was one of the first recipients of the Eddie in 2008.

For more information about Mastering Maths, visit www.masteringmaths.org/

About the International Society for Design and Development in Education

ISDDE was founded to bring together outstanding designers and developers from around the globe. The society aims to promote excellence in educational products and materials, particularly for science, mathematics, and technology by creating a professional community that shares knowledge, research, approaches, and critiques. ISDDE advances these goals through annual conferences, an e-journal, Educational Designer and annual prizes. For more information about ISDDE and its awards, visit www.isdde.org.

Contacts:

Prize winner – Geoffrey Wake (.uk)

ISDDE – Cornelia Connolly (Chair; )