Leadership advice for maths coordinators

As a maths specialist, supporting other teachers in the school means holding regular discussions and working collaboratively, not dictating

In 2008, the Williams Review recommended that ‘there should be a Mathematics Specialist in each primary school’ (p.25). This year, the first cohort of teachers will graduate with Mathematics Specialist Teacher status. The award follows two years of masters level study delivered in partnership between a Higher Education Institute and a Local Authority. The programme centres on the need to champion
mathematics to children, staff and parents, and its content hinges on three key themes: subject knowledge; pedagogy; and coaching and mentoring. The final theme is recognised by Ofsted as being key to the development of mathematics at a whole school level.

Mathematics Specialist Teachers consider a range of coaching models and practise a variety of associated skills
during the course of the programme. These address several factors key to implementing lasting, whole school change.

• holding purposeful learning conversations in order to establish clear goals from the outset;
• working collaboratively (rather than taking on the role of ‘expert’) with staff to foster an ethos of thoughtful experimentation where teachers are encouraged to explore options and to ‘have a go’;
• that change cannot be achieved through a single activity – it is a long term process which includes time for reflection and evaluation.

The following scenarios explore some typical challenges that Mathematics Specialist Teachers have encountered, and the kind of actions that could be taken to instigate
and sustain change.

SCENARIO 1

The headteacher has asked you to attend Y3’s weekly planning meetings this half term as she is concerned about the level of detail provided in the plans submitted to her. How will you set about supporting the Y3 team?

Next steps…

Two potential dangers are immediately apparent here:

1.Teachers see the MaST either as an ‘expert’ who will do the planning for them, or as an ‘imposition’ who is going to criticise their current practice.

2.Discussion would focus on planning formats and ‘filling boxes’ 134 rather than the planning process.

Specialist teachers need to be mindful that coaching is most successful when the professional learner wants to be coached. Talking about the decisions made when planning lessons can be a useful lead in to purposeful discussion.

An opening question might be, ‘The focus for next week is place value. What decisions do youneedtomake?’. Discussion can then lead to the idea that the first thing we need to find out is what the children lready know and understand.

In this way, a flow chart of the decision making process could be developed; possibly as a series of questions.

SCENARIO 2

You observe a lesson where the learning intention is to ‘recognise right angles’. As the lesson progresses, you realise the teacher has limited her exploration of right angles to
prototypical examples. During the same session, a child tells you that a differently oriented triangle does not have any right angles, when in fact it does. What might your next steps be?

Next steps…

Pupil misconceptions provide a useful opening for dialogue following lesson observations. Shifting the emphasis from ‘teacher performance’ to ‘children’s learning’ has proven to be a successful strategy in drawing teachers into the coaching process. Thus areas of difficulty with subject knowledge can be addressed through a discussion of pedagogy. Agreed goals would then centre on the need for groups of children to make progress. In this scenario, teachers might agree that a named group of children will ‘recognise right angles in
different orientations’.

To address misconceptions, experiments with pedagogy often involve developing mathematical discussion around conflict. These ‘conflicts’ can be presented in a variety of different ways. For example, with young children, a puppet might make mistakes that need to be corrected. With older children, ‘Concep Cartoons’ (Dabell 2008), which present visual disagreements, often prove successful in generating discussion.

The work of Askew and Wilam (1998) also suggests that choice of examples is central to children’s conceptual development and that children need to ‘rule in’ and ‘rule out’ examples and consider ‘nearly examples’. With this in mind, you might work together to devise a set of cards that test children’s ability to sort images of angles in different shapes or real life contexts, or create a set of ‘sometimes, always, never’ statements.

SCENARIO 3

You notice that the content of mathematical displays in your school is limited to ‘word banks’ and there are no mathematical displays in communal areas. What might your next steps be to raise the visible profile of mathematics in your school?

Next steps…

Research by Nardi and Stewart (2003) suggests five reoccurring attitudinal themes: maths is tedious; isolating; rote; elitist; and depersonalised (TIRED). Discussions with staff can centre around the potential for different kinds of mathematical displays that might address these negative perceptions.

An example of one specialist teacher’s response was to implement a ‘Mathematician’ display board. This varied between ‘famous’ mathematicians, such as Euler or Gauss, to the midwife who visited a member of staff on maternity leave. Story books and game boards (such as Monopoly) were also used as starting points for mathematical displays. Other displays focused on major events during 2012. One school even added number patterns to Jubilee bunting.

Noticing and commenting on small changes that teachers had made appeared to be very important in sustaining change.