Merstham Park School
Merstham Park is a non-selective state school located in the most deprived ward of Surrey, with one-third of pupils categorised as ‘pupil premium’. It serves a local community where ‘low expectations’ and ‘low educational aspiration’ are common, according to school leadership. Between 2018-2022, it operated in temporary buildings until the permanent building project was completed. In 2022, when Ofsted visited, the overall rating was ‘Good’ with a highly successful ‘deep dive’ of Maths. The leadership cites the department’s sustained involvement in their local Maths Hub as a reason for the successful inspection. Find out about how the school has sustained a relationship with the Maths Hub and how participation in the free professional development opportunities have taken the department from strength to strength.
When did Merstham Park first become involved in the Maths Hub?
The school first worked with the Maths Hub in 2019 through the ‘working in partnership with ITT’ workgroup. The Maths subject lead attended this work group as they delivered subject training for the GLF SCITT programme. Right from the very first meeting, the Hub’s support and resources were highlighted to the subject lead, which were all things that the department were previously unaware of.
When did Merstham Park become involved in Teaching for Mastery?
Through the ITT workgroup, the subject lead had the opportunity to observe a primary ‘mastery’ lesson. They left the observation feeling inspired to transform secondary teaching after seeing all the elements of Teaching for Mastery in action. The headteacher of the school gave full backing, trust and autonomy to the subject lead to implement mastery, and this has been crucial to the success.
What did involvement in the Teaching for Mastery workgroups look like?
For the Developing and Embedding phases, the school nominated two lead participants (mastery advocates) to attend the work group sessions and work on developing their own practice and understanding of mastery. As well as nominating two advocates, the subject lead set the expectation that all teachers in the department ‘buy into’ Teaching for Mastery and are willing to learn and develop. To enable this, the subject lead has consistently threaded Teaching for Mastery throughout all department time, collaborative planning and CPD sessions, thus ensuring that staff have remained informed over time and engaged with the key principles. The subject lead commented that part of the success has been due to setting out a clear vision from the start since they know that embedding mastery is the best thing for the students.
What key changes did you make as a result of being part of the Teaching for Mastery programme?
As a department, they now adapt and use the White Rose scheme of learning, ensuring that the Five Big Ideas for Teaching for Mastery are present in each and every lesson: variation, representation and structure, mathematical thinking, fluency and coherence. Lessons are now planned centrally as a department with consistent expectations and structure seen in all lessons. Within lessons, students engage in purposeful talk, model correct mathematical language and are able to reflect on their own learning. The school also decided to change to mixed-attainment groupings to ensure that all students are supported to achieve and that no part of the curriculum is reserved for ‘higher attaining’ students. When transitioning to this model, some parents were initially opposed to the change, but through open lessons, show of book work, and parent meetings that explained the rationale behind the change, all stakeholders came on board. Now there is no awareness that it was ever anything different!
What advice would you give to other schools starting to implement Teaching for Mastery?
- It’s important to have department planning meetings to get team on board – discuss changes as a team and allow all to contribute to curriculum development
- Ensure department time is learning and teaching focused with Teaching for Mastery at the forefront
- Model how to use resources such as White Rose – where to use MWBs and what representations to use
- No admin in meetings
- Ensure regular CPD, e.g., three or four 1-hour sessions per half-term and 1 shared PPA as a team. The whole Maths team should buy into Maths Hub provision and take advantage of the free professional development that is on offer. Subject leaders should make time to cascade things across the department alongside this.
- Schools must develop their culture and practice to enable ongoing mathematics professional and school development by building in more time for collaborative maths-focused discussions