A teacher from Queen Elizabeth Grammar school in Penrith has been selected to take part in a prestigious teacher exchange, focusing on mathematics, with a partner school in Shanghai.
Nadine Ford, QEGS’ Head of Maths, is among 16 secondary mathematics teachers from schools across England taking part in an exchange as part of the Maths Hubs Programme. QEGS is working with the North West Maths Hub.
Mrs Ford visited four different schools in Shanghai between 23rd Nov and 7th Dec, spending three days in each of two secondary schools and two days in each of two primary schools. In the evenings, she met up with the other members of the British group to review and discuss what they were seeing. She observed lessons to students of all ages and delivered a lesson on negative numbers to a class of 11 and 12 year olds. She said:
“The techniques of teaching maths in Shanghai are really impressive. Students are very able and very fluent in what they do. The methods definitely develop their math skills in a very positive way. I like the fact that they go very deep, ask a lot of questions to test understanding and really drill the details of a topic.”
The purpose of the exchange is to further develop the understanding and implementation of mastery approaches to teaching maths in QEGS, and in local partner schools Mrs Ford will be working with during the school year 2018/19.
This is one part of the Teaching for Mastery Programme, run by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) in conjunction with the Maths Hubs Programme, and funded by the DfE.
Funding for the four-year programme, initially amounting to £41m, was launched in July 2016.
The group of teachers, all of whom have completed training as Mastery Specialists in a programme run by the NCETM and Maths Hubs, have been visiting Shanghai in late November/early December 2018, and hosting their partner teachers from Shanghai in English schools in January 2019.
There are 35 Maths Hubs, spread across England, each led by a school with a record of high achievement in maths, and of supporting improvements in maths teaching and learning in neighbouring schools.
This is the fifth teacher exchange with schools in Shanghai since the Maths Hubs Programme was launched in autumn 2014.
