Outstanding Achievement:Innovations in Mathematics

Cecilia Freer

2nd i/c in Mathematics and SLE

SwaveseyCambridge Meridian Academies Trust

Village College

Our students routinely lead Cambridgeshire both in terms of percentage A*-C and value added measures.

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2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Current

A*-A

Ntl Ave A*-A

A*-B

A*-C

Ntl Ave2 A*-C

Mathematics DepartmentHeadline Figures

Our priorities• Mixed Ability Ethos

• Differentiation

• Group-work

• Collaborative planning, sharing resources, rich & engaging tasks

• Embedding STEM Activities

• Tracking progress – learning logs, skills checks

• AfL (How to improve H2I)

• Consistent home-learning experience

• Individual pathways

• Support sessions – lunch, after school, holiday revision

• Intervention – 1:1, mentoring, targeted after school, class groups

• Links to Primary schools – numeracy & L6 maths extension

• Research – Involvement in projects, masters degrees

• Use of technology – IWBs, smart phones, ipods, student voting, email

• Single gender groups

Key strategies we have adopted

• Embedding rich, open 'multi-faceted' tasks into our SoWs

• Extending this approach to home learning

• Use of prompts to scaffold & extend tasks

• Using tasks that require higher order thinking

• Establishing group-work: stabilising groups, accountability, equitable learning, using roles, 'Working in the middle‘, group-boards on the walls of two classrooms (so far)

Rich Questions: What’s the largest box you can create from a 20cm square of paper?

Effective group-work and mixed ability teachingGroup structures and roles

Group-work is particularly valuable with wide ability ranges: students can use each other as resources allowing higher-order thinking skills tasks (Cohen et al, 1989)

Advantages in maintaining ‘stable’groups allow a build up trust and respect for each other (Blatchford et

al., 2003)

Effective group-work and mixed ability teachingGroup structures and roles

Describe one thing this task helped you improve or learn today:‘Separate roles really helped this task’‘The way the task was structured’‘Role Cards - cooperation’‘Different Roles’

Starter ‘creative thinking’ task

Silent group cooperation task

Group mean from individual tests

Group marks on graded past paper Qs Individual Self

Assessment

Strategies adopted through group-work researchWorking in the middle

Establish group accountability: require students to put away their individual books and create a group product. This avoids individuals working separately without contributing to the group effort.

Strategies adopted through group-work researchWorking in the middle

Strategies adopted through group-work researchDeveloping this further: Group-whiteboards

Providing Support and Intervention: Personalised learning for students who experience barriers to learning mathematics

Maths Mentoring Programme: • Weekly 20 minute peer mentoring scheme for

year 7s paired with year 10s

Extra Mathematics Class per Week• For targeted groups students in years 9 to 11, on a

rotation basis

“Aiming to Ensure At Least Expected Progress for All”

Team-up Tuition• After school individual tuition with students from Cambridge University

Year 7 and 8 Numeracy Intervention• Weekly small class covering essential numeracy with

extra TA support

Study Centre Groups• Additional supported tuition and small group work for

selected students

Home LearningExtending learning beyond the classroom

Consistent homework tasks set for all. Either levelled tasks for students to select appropriate tasks or open projects where differentiation is by outcome.

Teacher, peer and self assessment

Tracking ProgressIndividual records – Learning Logs

Every student has a learning log for the year. This contains:• All levelled objectives for self

assessment (RAG)• A Progress Chart• Teacher, peer and self assessment of

homeworks• Space for detailed notes on topics• Records of skills check

levels, progress and How 2 Improve (H2I)

• Key words for each topic (in development with whole school literacy)

Tracking ProgressCohort Data and Skills Checks

Monitoring between assessments has a focus on progress from pre to post skills checks.Use of T-/T/T+ to identify underachievement and need for intervention and students to challenge further

Teaching to a Mixed Ability Classroom: Enriching Mathematical Learning and Building Cross-Curricular Links

Involvement in Educational Research: • Jo Boaler (University of Sussex)• Jenny Gage (University of Cambridge)• EpiSTEMe Dialogic Teaching (University of Cambridge)

Collaborative Work with Nrich and Stem Nrich• CHF, TS and JCB leading workshops at teacher inspiration events• Publishing resources, tasks and lesson structures• Lesson transcripts published from lessons taught by CHF and TS

“Aiming to Broaden Mathematical Ideas”

Raising Achievement in GCSE Mathematics• CHF and TS worked with the NCETM to produce case studies of

using rich tasks

STEM: “A bottle filled with a different ratio of water to air will produce a different note when air is blown across the top”

A maths practical in a science lab!