The most prominent influence on a child‘s math achievement is parents

The study found that primary school pupils who enjoy maths are likely to enter secondary school nearly a year earlier than their peers.

Children who liked math and found it interesting and important did better than their peers who had negative attitudes toward it, although the study authors noted that this finding did not show a cause-and-effect relationship.

The study combined data from nearly 7,000 students and focused on the effects of school climate, student-teacher relationships, teacher characteristics, attitudes toward mathematics, and perceptions of mathematics teachers to explore predictors of achievement trajectories in elementary and secondary school mathematics.

The authors found that secondary students performed better in mathematics if they believed their teacher treated all of their classmates equally, but the teacher's actual level of instruction had little effect on achievement.

Neither the teacher's own sophisticated understanding of the subject, nor attempts to make teaching interesting, emphasize the importance of mathematics, significantly improving student performance in mathematics. To illustrate, this is actually a statistically significant finding for overall achievement.

The authors argue that this finding is supported by previous research highlighting the devastating effects of environmental changes during the transition between elementary and secondary schools.

"Our findings also highlight the need for secondary schools to help students feel comfortable by providing a warmer school climate and by making the educational environment for young people a more positive one. We found a surprisingly negative link between the two, with pupils who excel in maths potentially having a less than pleasant time in secondary school."