Nearly two months after school closures were announced, our newsletter continues to reflect the dramatically-changed working world teachers find themselves in, while also anticipating a partial return to normality in the autumn.

This month:

• Additions to our lockdown support for teachers and parents
• Podcast discussions with four teachers working from home
• Ongoing Maths Hubs activity
• Recruitment of teachers to Primary Mastery Specialist Programme
• Other recruitment opportunities in the Maths Hubs Programme
• Three new Maths Hubs starting in the next academic year
• In brief
• A tribute to Don Steward.

Support for maths learning and teaching during school closures

Over the last few weeks, we've been adding to our resources to support teachers and parents during the school closures.

To support parents, we've been adding more video tips for both primary and secondary age children, and for parents and teachers, our suite of primary video lessons is expanding by around fifteen new videos each week.

Learning in lockdown podcasts from the NCETM

One area of our activity we’ve been able to pursue ‘as normal’ is our podcasts. We’ve recently been recording 15-minute interviews with primary and secondary teachers across England, to reflect the different ways that schools are providing remote learning, and teachers' emerging thoughts on school re-opening. There are currently four episodes in the ‘lockdown’ series to listen to.

Find out more

Ongoing Maths Hubs activity

Work in Maths Hubs around England continues to be adapted while schools remain closed, and priorities for many teachers remain on matters linked to the coronavirus. However, many meetings planned as face-to-face events have successfully taken place online. As you’ll gather from items below, planning for next year’s work is well underway, although there’s unlikely to be much face-to-face activity, taking teachers away from their schools, until after the autumn half-term break. For more information, do contact your local Maths Hub.

Recruitment of teachers to Primary Mastery Specialist Programme

Maths Hubs are again seeking to recruit primary teachers to a three-year programme to develop expertise in mastery approaches to teaching maths, and work with other schools to introduce similar developments in maths teaching. Find out more.

Other recruitment opportunities in the Maths Hubs Programme

Earlier this year, we started to recruit teachers to the secondary version of the Teaching for Mastery Programme. And there are also opportunities open for teachers to join two separate professional development (PD) programmes run by the NCETM and Maths Hubs in 2020/21. The PD Lead Development and Accreditation Programme lasts a year and includes an option to gain Masters Level credits with further academic study. Meanwhile the Maths SLE School Improvement Support Programme provides regional network meetings (one per term) and an online community where SLEs can learn both from experts and each other.

Three new Maths Hubs launched

Three new Maths Hubs in England have come into existence, bringing the total in the Maths Hubs Network to 40.

They are:

• Origin Maths Hub, covering Solihull, Coventry and Warwickshire
• Möbius Maths Hub, serving schools in Bracknell Forest, Reading, Swindon, West Berkshire, Wiltshire and Wokingham
• Venn Essex Maths Hub, covering most of Essex.

The new hubs will start work properly when the next school year gets going in September, but they can all be contacted now, particularly if schools want to know about CPD activities in the autumn.

In brief

• MEI are again running their popular Calculator Crunch competition to support the Year 6 transition. It takes place over nine days in June, this year adapted for those learning from home
• Also, over the next couple of months, MEI will be publishing a set of five ‘Get Calculating’ lesson plans for Year 7 that focus on developing the use of calculators in a range of mathematical contexts
• In partnership with Google and Microsoft, the DfE has recently launched an offer for schools to download and set up digital education platforms to be able to teach remotely. Find out more.

And finally

Many of you will have been touched in some way by the prolific and hugely respected work, in a range of roles in maths education, of Don Steward, who died recently. He was nationally and internationally known, working in the West Midlands, including, recently, leading Work Groups for SHaW Maths Hub, which covers Shropshire, Telford, Herefordshire and Wolverhampton. Among the many tributes paid to Don is this from Graham Charles, the SHaW Maths Hub Lead.

Please do contact us if you have any comments on this newsletter.

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