What we mean by professional development
When we talk about teacher and school professional development or CPD, we mean the ongoing activities that teachers undertake both to develop their classroom practice and to improve maths teaching in a department or school. Whether CPD is individual or collaborative, the ultimate wider objective, of course, is school-wide, lasting improvements to pupil learning.
We believe this process is more likely be successful if the professional development experience involves teachers working with peers in other schools as well as their own, led by someone with expertise in a particular field. All the CPD offered by the Maths Hubs takes the form of one of four types of professional development.
Types of school and professional development activity
What is a Work Group?
The Work Group is the model of professional and school development used in most Maths Hubs projects.
Work Groups
Discover what is involved in a Work Group, and why it leads to lasting improvements
A Work Group is:
- comprised of a group of schools who work on something together, normally over the large part of a school year, typically with one or two teachers from each school acting as lead participants
- led by a teacher or former teacher, expert both in the area of maths education in question and in leading teacher professional development
- normally part of a national collaborative project, which supports the Work Group Leads and seeks to ensure lessons are learned from around the country.
Schools in every Work Group:
- work towards outcomes linked to teachers’ professional learning, their practice development, the learning of the pupils they teach, and new approaches and policies in maths teaching across their school or department
- maintain a focus on the classroom, often planning, observing and refining lessons together
- evaluate the outcomes of the Work Group’s activity, with collated findings being fed into the national picture and used to inform future work.
In some teaching for mastery projects, the Work Group has previously also been referred to as a Teacher Research Group (TRG). The characteristics of a TRG are exactly the same as a Work Group.
What is a Work Group?
Maths Hubs Projects
Each year, more than thirty different projects are available through our Maths Hub.
When you take part in a project with your Maths Hub, you will engage in one of four types of professional development activity - a Work Group, a programme, a community, or Targeted Support in Maths. All of these are structured to enable teachers and schools to take part flexibly online and face-to-face.
LLMEs
In every Maths Hub area, there’s a group of experienced teachers and education professionals who lead all the school and professional development work run by the hub.