Mastery and English mathematics education Dr Mark Boylan

Perspective SHU is undertaking a longitudinal evaluation of the primary arm of the China-England Teacher Exchange project. Focused on –changes in practice in schools directly involved in the exchange and more widely –and impact on KS1 and KS2 outcomes Contribution today is based on a consideration of mastery and English mathematics education to inform analysis rather than reporting findings.

Primary Mathematics Education

KS2 Mathematics outcomes

The English picture Low levels of interaction between teacher and pupils, including during whole class episodes. The format that dominates is teacher explanation followed by individual practice or group practice (Smith et al. 2004; Miao & Reynolds, 2014, 2015). Practice tends to be based on worksheets or other resources that focus on routine problems and use of textbooks is rare (Askew et al., 2010) – quantity rather than quality Plenaries in only half of lessons (Sammons, et al., 2005) Teaching assistants support SEN pupils rather than teachers conducting 'intervention' (Blatchford et al., 2007). Fixed ability thinking and practices (Marks, 2014). Summary: very different to Shanghai mastery

Sea change?

New Primary curriculum "The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on. " (Emphasis added]

Mastery in Shanghai Shanghai mastery pedagogy Organisation of mathematics teaching Educational structures and systems Cultural beliefs and practices

Some challenges Embedded notions of levels - local and national replacements appear quite stuck in ‘levels thinking’ Related fixed ability practices, lack of experience of other forms of differentiation Strong subject knowledge needed to offer 'rich and sophisticated problems' for deepening or to support others to keep together Shanghai teachers use textbooks that represent distillation of thousands of hours of design, teaching and teacher research group activity Shanghai teachers have significantly more time for planning. ITE: Lack of 'mastery mentors'

Some opportunities The end of levels creates the need for new practices New primary curriculum plus access to evidence, e.g. Sutton Trust Tool Kit, PISA secondary analysis Desire amongst many for subject knowledge development - mastery offers a route to change teacher relationships to mathematics Established threads of problem solving and rich task curricula New primary curriculum creates space and need for new resources and materials Relative lack of subject specialist mentors - creates a space for learning together -TRGs in ITE?

Modes of change

ITE: meeting the challenge of mastery Capacity to engage in analysis of mathematical structures, concepts and processes (‘procepts’) and connections Teacher educators, whether HE or school based, have capacity to contribute to resourcing the mastery curriculum Supporting mentors to ‘mentor for mastery’ Developing future teacher system leaders who can lead change from below (Boylan, 2013) with the support of enabling leadership from national and regional networks/organisations