Who can take part?

This Work Group is for teachers of Core Maths who wish to develop their practice.

Teachers who will be teaching Core Maths in future years are also welcome.

These may be teachers in post-16 settings whose main subject is maths or whose main subject is not maths.

Participants will be expected, where appropriate, to work with colleagues in their own department.

The project involves a direct working partnership between the Yorkshire Ridings Maths Hub and the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP).

Teachers across the whole of Yorkshire are welcome to join this blended programme.

What is involved?

The programme will give teachers opportunities, through collaboration and experimentation, to develop improved teaching approaches that support the open-ended problem-solving skills Core Maths students need to develop, and they share these with departmental colleagues.

Participants will design and trial classroom activities, sharing and reflecting on their experiences with others in the Work Group.

Work Groups will meet for the equivalent of four days across the year.

Participants’ institutions must commit to:

• releasing them to attend all Work Group sessions

• allowing them to develop their practice in their classroom and share this with departmental colleagues.

Participants must commit to:

• attending all Work Group sessions and engaging with and completing activities between Work Group sessions.

What are the intended outcomes?

Student outcomes

Students will:

• have raised awareness of the use of maths and statistics in everyday life
• have increased their confidence in their mathematical understanding and developed further mathematical understanding and skills in the application of maths to authentic problems
• have an increased understanding of the crossover of mathematical techniques between Core Maths and other subjects.

Practice development

Participants will, through the theme of the Work Group:

• share approaches to the planning and delivery of the Core Maths curriculum
• apply related pedagogical approaches in their Core Maths teaching
• teach mathematical concepts and processes effectively through contextualised problem-solving
• identify and make effective use of existing Core Maths resources.

Professional learning

Participants will:

• understand the philosophy of Core Maths, with its approach to teaching and learning maths through contextualised problem-solving in authentic situations
• develop their understanding by exploring a range of common Core Maths approaches and topics (e.g. Fermi problems, critical analysis of numbers in the media) and relate this to their use of pre-release materials
• have an understanding of how the NCETM’s teaching for mastery pedagogy relates to Core Maths pedagogy.

What is the cost?

The Developing Core Maths Pedagogy programme is fully funded by the Maths Hubs Programme and the AMSP so is free to participating schools/colleges.