{"id":43641,"date":"2010-09-17T21:01:42","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T21:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mast.thomasjpitts.co.uk\/?p=14"},"modified":"2010-09-17T21:01:42","modified_gmt":"2010-09-17T21:01:42","slug":"thoughts-after-meeting-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/17\/thoughts-after-meeting-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts after meeting one"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here we go then…<\/p>\n

I attended the first meeting of many over the next two years as I begin my professional journey to a richer, greener, hopefully much improved, teaching field. I have many ideas about what I would like to\u00a0achieve\u00a0from this course – specific, actual targets aren’t something I’ve thought about. Yet.<\/p>\n

I know where I want my career to go eventually in that I’d like to be someone who is a creative teacher of maths, and other subjects. I want to be known by the people I work with as someone they can mine for ideas or suggestions. I have plenty of ambition, plenty of drive, I’m willing to try anything at least once if I think it will help my pupils get a richer educational<\/a> experience – although I’m slightly\u00a0skeptical\u00a0before I try something without knowing it’s worked elsewhere. This reason is precisely why I’m a follower of many teaching professionals on Twitter<\/a>, why I spend time reading all kinds of educational web sites<\/a> and forums.<\/p>\n

Anyway, on with the course. The idea behind the Mathematics<\/a> Specialist Teacher role is to become a “Mathematics Champion”. Someone who is, according to the course handbook:<\/p>\n

…a confident and competent mathematician who can inspire children and teachers and be truly regarded as a Champion of Mathematics in the schools in which they work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The initial development of this role was outlined in the 2008 Williams Report (Independent Review of Mathematics Teaching in Early Years Settings and Primary Schools – WMR Final Report<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0Recommendation 3 of which states:<\/p>\n

There should be at least one Mathematics Specialist in each\u00a0primary school<\/a>, in post within 10 years, with deep mathematical subject and\u00a0pedagogical knowledge<\/a>, making appropriate arrangements for small and rural\u00a0schools. Implementation should commence in 2009 and be targeted initially to\u00a0maximise impact on standards and to narrow attainment gaps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, this is likely to go out of the window in the future as the admittedly much needed money saving cuts are put in place by the current government<\/a>. Indeed, funding is in the air for future cohorts. I am part of the second such cohort in Kirklees<\/a>, a member of a group of 40 individuals – but Calderdale<\/a> will only have one cohort, consisting of just 10 people as their second cohort funding was not approved.<\/p>\n

The three main aims of the programme are to\u00a0develop:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. a deep understanding of the subject<\/li>\n
  2. an understanding of pedagogy<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. an ability to support the mathematical and pedagogical understanding of colleagues in school<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These aims are to be covered through taught sessions, school based tasks, readings, directed tasks and a learning journal – this is my attempt at the latter part.<\/p>\n

    Welcome.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Here we go then… I attended the first meeting of many over the next two years as I begin my professional journey to a richer, greener, hopefully much improved, teaching field. I have many ideas about what I would like to\u00a0achieve\u00a0from this course – specific, actual targets aren’t something I’ve thought about. Yet. I know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4439,4440],"tags":[4474,1015,4520,4533,1909,1910,4543,1911,4566,2437,3109,4616],"class_list":["post-43641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","category-study-block-1","tag-calderdale","tag-education","tag-knowledge","tag-mast","tag-math","tag-mathematics","tag-mathematics-specialist-teacher-programme","tag-maths-2","tag-pedagogy","tag-primary-school","tag-twitter","tag-williams-report","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6OeSW-blT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}