Joanna Deko, Regional Lead for the East of England
Over 30 teachers from Cambridgeshire and beyond met in Hallmark Hotel in Cambridge for an interesting and stimulating day of professional development and networking.
The day started with a fun activity on Fermi estimation, followed by choice of workshops. There was an opportunity to share resources in a session after lunch, and the day finished with keynote session lead by Rob Eastaway.
The three workshops to choose from were:
- Getting started with Core Maths – delivered by Cat van Saarloos – perfect session for anyone who is considering or will be teaching Core Maths for the first time including strategies for how to plan and deliver Core Maths lessons, suggestions for promoting Core Maths, timetabling, support and professional development.
- Working with World Data – delivered by Tom Rainbow – session inspired by the work of Hans Rosling and The Royal Geographical Society exploring how we can incorporate world data into the teaching of Core Maths.
- Core Maths Project Style – delivered by Lily Tang-Gentile – session looking at open-ended problem solving and exploring teaching Core Maths in ‘project style’. Project is an interesting way of engaging maths students, though for some maths teachers, this can be quite daunting. We had the opportunity to look through previous projects that Lily has ran, including ‘Let’s make Santa Real!’ and ‘Can an 18 year old survive on minimum wage in Cambridge?’. There were plenty of good discussions and ideas from the workshops.
The day was a great success with many positive comments shared among teachers. Please get in touch with your Area Coordinators if you are planning to offer Core Maths from September 2019 or 2020, or for more information about Core Maths.