North West One Maths Hub welcomes Shanghai maths teachers

North West One Maths Hub (NW1 Maths Hub) and staff and students from St Mary’s C of E Primary School, Manchester are looking forward to January 2017, when they welcome two maths teachers from Shanghai, China as part of a national exchange programme.

On 8^th January, Monica and Smile will accompany a group of 70 Shanghai teachers involved in a teacher-led exchange programme as part of the government’s Maths Hub programme – a national network of leading schools who are responsible for improving the quality of mathematical teaching and learning for our children.

Monica and Smile will be based at St Mary’s C of E Primary School, Moss Side and will work alongside Fiona Hagsharfi, Assistant Head-teacher and North West One Mastery Lead. Fiona was one of 70 primary school teachers from England who went on a research visit to Shanghai in November this year.

During their time in the UK the teachers will deliver lessons as they do in Shanghai, demonstrating the techniques which have led to children performing in maths at a world-leading level. Through the network, the Chinese teachers will also lead masterclasses with other schools so more teachers can benefit directly from their expertise.

Fiona said: “Both Dianne Elithorn, a Mastery Specialist Teacher from Lowercroft Primary School, Bury, and I visited Shanghai in November and spent two weeks in primary schools.  Our visit gave us a remarkable insight into how mathematics is taught, how every child is on the same page of the same text book at the same time and how children are mastering deeper mathematical understanding.”

Simon Mazumder, Lead of the North West One Maths Hub said: “We are delighted to be hosting the teachers and are really looking forward to them sharing their vision of mastery in mathematics, where approaches include whole class teaching, meticulous planning and the use of lots of visual representations to ensure sound conceptual understanding.”

“This is the third exchange programme for China with North West One, where the key objective of this long term project is to create an opportunity to share good practice, so that colleagues from each country will work closely together, teaching classes, planning lessons and reflecting jointly on their experiences.”

The exchange will culminate in a final dinner of British cuisine before Monica and Smile depart back to China, taking with them memorable experiences and teaching strategies from the UK.