A Message from Janine Allen, Maths Hub Lead

Last year was a fantastic year for the Kent & Medway Maths Hub community, as you will see from our summary poster. We really enjoyed working with our Work Group Leads to evaluate the range of programmes offered across the county and there were so many positive examples of impact on teachers and teaching assistants practice which ultimately made a difference to pupils and students in Kent & Medway. I hope that you are seeing this reflected in your schools too.

At a recent forum for Maths Hub Leads, we were reminded that 'Teaching for Mastery is a philosophy, not a scheme - a set of beliefs about maths education' and this continues to be the focus of our work with schools, exploring the Essence of Teaching for Mastery. It doesn't matter what scheme you use, our role is to support teachers to use this most effectively. We are really excited to be developing our team's understanding of Oracy in mathematics and all teachers participating in Work Groups this year will be considering this too. Equally, some of our primary schools will be exploring problem solving as an integral part of our teaching approach, whilst our secondary schools will be considering effective cross departmental reach. There are many opportunities available to schools this year, so please look at the website for full details.

Celebrating 10 Years of the Maths Hubs Programme

This year is especially exciting as we get to celebrate 10 years of the Maths Hubs Programme and all the fantastic work that has paved the way to where we are today and look ahead to where we might go next. We hope you have managed to save the date for our conference United Through Numbers: A Decade of Strong Bonds and Bright Futures in Kent and Medway where we will come together to celebrate and we look forward to sharing more details with you soon. Attending the conference will be completely FREE so whether an established member of the Maths Hub community or looking to find out more there will be some inspiring key notes as well as examples of impact from local schools.

Some huge achievements have been made over the last 10 years, not just in Kent and Medway but by all 40 Maths Hubs across England with 4.7 million students having been impacted by this programme. If you'd like to know some more about the history of the Maths Hubs Programmes, the NCETM have published a brilliant feature looking back at this, you can check it out here.

LLME Day

It's always great to get our LLME together and what a better way to really kick start the new academic year than to do just that. It was very busy day with lots of exciting discussions, planning for the year ahead and of course lunch!

Our team is growing!

We are really excited to have welcomed Kieran Mackle on board as our newest Assistant Maths Hub Lead for Evaluation and Impact. He'll be working with our participant schools focussing on their journeys and what we've achieved over the last 10 years, what's gone well, what we've learnt and where we can go next.

Whilst this is a new role for Kieran he has been an active part of our wider team of LLME over the years, most recently taking the lead on our Mastery Readiness Work Groups and SKTM for Primary ECTs.

Overcoming Math Anxiety in Learners, some thoughts from Jason Horne, AMHL Primary

As we begin a new Academic Year, we will start to identify those learners in our class who are suffering from Maths Anxiety. We often see this from the first lessons with the children where we can notice fear of failure, avoidance of math tasks, and difficulty concentrating during math lessons. The best way to address math anxiety is by fostering a positive and productive learning environment.

Math anxiety is often caused by a combination of factors. As adults we can identify with these as well. They normally involve negative experiences with math, perceived lack of ability, and societal stereotypes about math “When am I ever going to need this” and “I was never any good at maths!”. This often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, where students' beliefs about their math skills can influence their performance and further reinforce their anxiety.

So lets look at 5 strategies for overcoming math anxiety:

Create a Positive Math Environment: Foster a supportive and encouraging classroom atmosphere where students feel safe to ask questions and make mistakes. One of my favourite techniques to do this is to create a “my favourite mistake of today” board. It is important for children to understand that making mistakes is a good thing, as learning from these mistakes make us stronger mathematicians. With this we should provide positive reinforcements and celebrate all students' successes.

Build Confidence through Success: Break down math problems into smaller, manageable steps to help students feel more confident in their ability to solve them. Provide opportunities for students to practice and reinforce their understanding of concepts. This is one of “Rosenshine’s Principles of instruction” and a key factor in teaching for Mastery. In taking these small steps pupils are able to keep up with the learning, making them feel success.

Use Concrete Manipulatives: Concrete manipulatives can help students visualize abstract mathematical concepts and make them more accessible. Using hands-on materials can reduce anxiety and improve understanding. It allows pupils to see the maths and understand the underlying structure of a concept. Remember the EEF Mathematics guidance “There must be a clear rationale for using a particular manipulative or representation to teach a specific mathematical concept.”

Encourage Growth Mindset: Promote a growth mindset, where students believe that their abilities can be developed through effort and practice. Emphasize that mistakes are learning opportunities and that everyone can improve their math skills.

Provide Support: Offer additional support and resources for students who are struggling with math. One of the best ways to get pupils to feel confident is by giving pre- teaching. Pupils will enter the maths lessons with knowledge already about the content and will feel less anxiety about what is to come.

For more information look at this webpage- https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/what-issue/about-maths-anxiety

Our 24/25 Offer

Our CPD offer this year is bigger than ever and we can't wait to welcome you on to one of our many programmes. We're still actively recruiting Secondary schools to join our Teaching for Mastery Pathway and all of our SKTM programmes are open for recruitment. There really is something for everyone so make sure you check out our full offer on the website or get in touch today to find the right programme for you.

Teaching For Mastery

Last week we had the pleasure of bringing our Primary Schools together to kick start our Teaching for Mastery programme for this year. We had a great turn out from our new and returning schools, it was a busy couple of days but as always there was lots of exciting discussion and planning for the year ahead.

We are looking forward to bringing our Secondary Schools this week and we're sure it will be equally successful. This will be an action packed year for our Secondary team with nearly 70 schools now engaged with our TfM programmes and we are pleased to be able to offer an extensive range of Sustaining work groups, you can find out more about this offer here. If you'd like to find out more about Secondary Teaching for Mastery get in touch today.

In another very exciting development for Secondary schools a brand new programme from NCETM, Securing Foundations at Year 7 has been launched this year. The programme is designed to equip teachers with the KS1 and KS2 domain specific knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge to better support students with gaps in understanding. We've had 20 schools sign up for this year and we're sure it will be a success.

We've also got 2 Post 16 work groups on offer this year. For the first time our A Level Pedagogy group will look at the Statistics and Mechanics content, if you've previously participated in the group we'd love for you to come back and join us to explore this new content. We're also pleased to be offering an SKTM for Teachers new to Core Maths to improve their subject knowledge and pedagogy. Get in touch today to find out more!