Task B: Context

When I became mathematics subject leader for my school, I introduced maths mastery throughout the phases to
link in with the New Curriculum1. I began to introduce mastery to develop teaching and learning and raise
attainment and progress through reasoning skills. Although, progress was made by children in mathematics,
attainment was not showing the age related expected progress and as a result, a new initiative was needed.
These goals sit within the school development plan as they aim to rapidly improve the achievement of all pupils by
significantly increasing the number of pupils who make expected progress and better than expected progress.
Consequently, this initiative will ensure more children achieve a 'good pass' in mathematics compared to last
years results. This will improve the childrens life chances by increasing the number leaving Year 6 as 'on track' or
'met' and 'above expected' thus meeting the Age Related Expectations (ARE). By increasing the number of children
achieving ARE, their further learning at secondary school will give them a higher chance to pass GCSE's.
My school is in an extremely highly deprived area with at least 65% PPG. The school has become an academy from
September 2016 and all staff are looking forward to working alongside other similar schools in deprived areas to
learn from each other. There is a high turnover of the teaching staff and often vacancies cannot be filled.
Generally, the cohort at school achieve significantly below the national average at school in both KS1 and KS2
(RAISE online 2015/2016 report). Ofsted visited in April 2015 and rated the school as Requiring Improvement.
However, the pupils are significantly underachieving as 21% in Year 6 achieved their Reading SAT's in 2016, 61%
passed KS1 SAT's in 2016, 28% Year 6 passed all three papers (combined) in 2016. The areas which need
developing, the schools key priorities, are the Reasoning Papers which Year 6 achieved 18% and overall 41% in
mathematics.
In September 2015, I joined the North London Teacher Research Group (TRG) and it was led by a Mastery
Specialist, who had been over to Shanghai to study this process of their developed teaching style. The TRG
involved ten teachers from a range of North London schools. We met monthly for lesson observations at a North
1 National curriculum in England: mathematics programmes of study, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-inengland-mathematics-programmes-of-study

London primary school, discussed the lesson structure and pace and evaluated the outcome of both the teachers
performance and delivery but more importantly the childrens understanding and deepening of the concept taught.
This project lasted for a year and I was fortunate to observe all key phases (KS1 and KS2).
The TRG provided an opportunity for my school to engage in high-quality, sustained, collaborative professional
development and participate in an important national project. The aim of TRGs is to support participating teachers
in developing teaching for mastery in their own school.
Primary Mathematics Teaching for Mastery Specialists Programme, which is one of five National Collaborative
Projects running in Year Two of the National Maths Hubs Programme. Of these five, two were also looking to
develop teaching mathematics for mastery, with some schools considering the teaching of mathematics in
Shanghai, and different schools using textbooks based on the Singapore curriculum.
As a consequence to this initiative, Essex County Council have led improvement systems and led CPD days in
Essex. I have attended several mastery courses which have highlighted the need to apply the skills through using
concrete, pictorial and the abstract principles when teaching. Every Essex school should be part of a formal school
partnership with a number of other schools, highlights how critical it is to share good practice through joint
development and peer reviews.2 This was one of the main reasons our school joined the TRG and I was able to
feedback via staff meetings the outcome of such collaborations.

2 Blatchford and Clark Self-Improving Schools, The Journey to Excellence, 2016, p.151