Parents were invited into Queen’s Crescent Primary School in Chippenham to see how maths is taught.

The new curriculum is being brought in September next year, when calculators will be banned from the key stage two SAT. About 100 parents went along to a maths evening at the school, organised by teachers Charli Boddington and Nikita Reid.

Mrs Boddington said: “It was to get parents in to see how we are teaching maths these days and alert them to changes coming in. Things will change significantly. Expectations will be higher.”

David Hicks gave a magical maths show using balloons to make 3D objects to show vertices, while Abbeyfield sixth formers ran problem solving activities. The new curriculum means children will have to read Roman numerals in the thousands, as well as introducing long division at the end of primary schooling.

In the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) study, the UK was ranked 24th in the world for maths.