Maths Hub Headlines

Now in our third year as a Maths Hub, we are pleased to be collaborating with an ever-increasing number of schools. It is important to us that our work with schools is sustained over time so that we can maintain close relationships and help ensure that we have lasting impact. In addition to this, we also want to help develop maths leadership capacity in all areas and we welcome interest from those who think they have something to offer in helping lead professional development through the Maths Hub.

Of the 319 schools we are working with this academic year, 43 of these have never worked with us before and the remaining 276 have maintained sustained engagement with us for one or two years previously. We are proud of this and want to thank all of the Local Leaders of Maths Education’ (LLME) who have made this happen! If you are keen to get involved, a useful starting point is to attend one of our free Maths Lead or Head Teacher network meetings that happen each term (you can book on our website). Alternatively, we would love to hear from you via email and discuss any possibilities in more detail – you can find our contact details at the end of this newsletter.

As it stands, we are currently working with around 62% of all schools across Cheshire, Wirral and Halton. This means we have exceeded the DfE target for engagement by 2023, however we want to make sure we are supporting the remaining schools who have been unable to engage with Maths Hub programmes this year. If you and your school are not aware of what we offer, please do get in touch as all of our programmes are fully funded and supported by the DfE.

 

Mastering Number (Reception, Y1 & Y2)

By far our largest and most ambitious programme this year, Mastering Number involves us working with approximately 160 primary schools across the region (with close to 5000 primaries across the whole country). Each of these schools is using newly developed ‘Mastering Number’ resources that aim to support schools in fostering the essential knowledge and skills of early number, what we describe as ‘number sense’. Not only should this support the necessary curriculum adaptations due to Covid disruption, but we also hope it will help improve schools’ maths curriculums for the foreseeable future. We think it is a great programme, but don’t take our word for it, read some of the feedback we have had so far below!

 

“My Year 2 class are enjoying the daily sessions and are showing more awareness of how numbers are represented in different ways.  They are also understanding more how numbers are made up of smaller numbers. Our main maths lessons have improved due to the children recognising numbers quickly especially if number bonds are involved… The children are showing much more confidence overall in their use of numbers and now our Rekenreks have arrived they are very excited to get to use them.”

 

“As a teacher new to EYFS, the resources and guidance have been fantastic in guiding the pace of the learning as well as ideas to develop maths throughout the day.”

 

“Children are able to subitise and show and say what number they see, explaining with positional language, again a big win!  it does feel like this is laying stronger foundations in understanding number than previous approaches.”

 

“Mastering Number has been greatly beneficial in revisiting prior learning. It has strengthened Year Two’s number sense, which was particularly needed after so much disruption to this cohort’s schooling. The programme has boosted our children’s confidence as they enjoy and feel comfortable working with familiar numbers. They now apply their understanding to numbers to 100, and beyond.”

 

 

Pupils in one primary school practise their subitising.

Specialist Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics (Secondary non-specialists)

One of our new programmes this year is designed to support anyone teaching secondary mathematics without a specialist degree in the subject. This can include those who do not hold QTS but have a commitment to teaching maths in the school. There is also some scope for us to be able to include those with mathematics specialist degrees, who would like to develop their subject knowledge further too.

 

This year we have a group of 16 teachers working together in this programme and, so far, they have attended three sessions that have been a mixture of face to face and online.  In the most recent session, the group explored how we can most effectively teach trigonometry, focusing on the use of technology to learn from ‘dynamic representations’. A ‘dynamic’ representation enables to learner to manipulate the mathematics and visually see the change happening, rather than it being purely theoretical.

 

The group are enjoying the sessions and gaining a lot of valuable knowledge and skills that will help improve their mathematics teaching.

An example of a ‘dynamic representation’

 

 

 

Local Leaders of Mathematics Education Across Cheshire, Wirral and Halton

As we hope everyone knows, the Cheshire & Wirral Maths Hub is a collaborative effort from teachers across many schools. Our core aim is to help improve mathematics education for all and, at the heart of this is our ‘Local Leaders of Maths Education’ (LLME) community. This group is formed of teachers from across all the regions, who lead our Work Groups or are training to become leads. Currently, we have 51 members of the LLME community and, after several years of only meeting online, we were very glad to be able to meet together in person last term! We have been exploring how to lead collaborative planning and lesson study and are trying to effectively build this into our Work Groups.

Our ‘LLME’ Community finally meeting in person last term!

 

Key Contacts:

 

Maths Hub Lead:
Andy Ash – aash@ourladyofpity.co.uk

Maths Hub Coordinator:
Fiona McCrudden-Bruce – mathshub@ourladyofpity.co.uk

Secondary Mastery Lead:
Jayne Watts – j.watts@alsagerschool.org

Primary Mastery Lead:
Rachel Hounslow-Griffiths – rhounslow@meadow.cheshire.sch.uk

Website: https://cheshireandwirralmathshub.co.uk