When booking, please note the dates and times in your diary, and submit your cover request in school.

An underpinning principle of maths teaching for mastery is the assumption that everyone can learn and enjoy maths. Teaching assistants (TAs) contribute significantly to maths learning, offering inclusive strategies and accommodations to support students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) to access the maths curriculum.

The 2023 Ofsted maths subject report ‘Coordinating mathematical success’ highlights how successful TAs who were working directly with individual students with SEND were most successful in supporting mathematical development when they had a secure knowledge of the maths curriculum and of the range of pedagogical approaches being used by the teacher. TAs who did not have this specialist knowledge were sometimes restricted to supporting students in more generic ways. For example, they offered encouragement or repeated the teacher’s explanations. In a very small number of cases, the teaching assistant’s lack of mathematical knowledge actively hindered students’ progress. For example, one teaching assistant advised students of ‘tricks’ to follow rather than explaining the mathematical methods the teacher intended.

This programme supports TAs in developing the specialist knowledge (a blend of subject and pedagogical) for teaching maths, and complements teaching for mastery approaches as exemplified in the NCETM’s Essence of Mathematics Teaching for Mastery.

The programme uses highly regarded centrally produced core materials that have been piloted and refined over several years. Participants also work collaboratively on maths tasks facilitated by Cohort Leads. There is opportunity for structured conversations to unpick the maths, the pedagogy modelled within sessions, misconceptions that students have, and how the approaches can be shared with fellow TA colleagues and transferred to working with students in the maths classroom.

Who will be leading the group?

Vanessa Brown

Who is it for?

This programme will be relevant for TAs who work for most of their time with students in the KS3 maths classroom, or who lead intervention sessions with groups of students. The participants’ schools should already be engaged with a Teaching for Mastery Work Group, and this programme will complement this provision. There are core materials for all SKTM programmes that Cohort Leads will use as the basis of their local programmes. The core materials incorporate tasks from a variety of sources that demonstrate progression from KS1 to KS3 in key number concepts.

The programme will be run over the equivalent of four days (hubs decide whether the programme is delivered face-to-face, blended, or online), and participants must commit to attending all sessions. Participants will develop their specialist knowledge with a focus on using precise mathematical language, representations and reasoning within each of the topics: addition and subtraction; multiplication and division; fractions and ratio and proportion. In addition to attendance at these sessions, participants will be asked to carry out school-based tasks to enable participants to develop their practice in the classroom.

What are the intended outcomes?

Student outcomes

Students will:

• demonstrate a positive attitude towards the learning of maths
• think, reason and discuss their maths in order to deepen their understanding.

Practice development

Participants will:

• review their practice as a result of the sessions and make specific adaptations to support the students they are working with
• use appropriate mathematical language and representations with confidence.

Professional learning

Participants will:

• enhance their maths specialist knowledge with a particular focus on mathematical structures and representations in each of the following topic areas:
  • Addition and subtraction (extending to negative numbers)
  • Multiplication and division (extending to negative numbers)
  • Fractions o
  • Ratio and proportion
• work towards developing their understanding of how to suitably adapt resources to meet the needs of their students
• develop an understanding of how algebra relates to the generalisation of number. 

What is the cost?

Funded by DfE so participation is free for schools