Ria Symonds, AC for Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
With many Nottinghamshire schools being part of the original pilot scheme for Core Maths, demand for professional development in the qualification has naturally been on the up. In response to this, the AMSP and our local East Midlands Maths Hubs have planned to host a series of Core Maths CPD days.
On 7 December, the first of these sessions, “Core Maths – a fresh approach to teaching mathematics”, welcomed 12 local maths teachers to learn more about the qualification and how to teach it. Some teachers already had some experience and used the day to develop their resources and obtain new teaching ideas for the classroom. Other participants had never taught Core Maths before and had attended the event to help prepare themselves for teaching it in the near future.
Core Maths is an exciting and vibrant course that aims to connect the maths our students learn with the world they live in. Teaching it can be an exciting new challenge for maths teachers, but it can also be quite daunting, particularly for those who have not taught it before. The contextualisation of maths within authentic settings may well require the development of a different set of skills to those used in the delivery of A level and GCSE maths. The day itself was designed to ease some of those fears but also give some great ideas of how to teach it.
If you are interested in finding out more about Core Maths then please get in touch or check out the events listings for details. The next of our Core Maths CPD days will occur in the spring, and you can email your local Area Coordinator for more details.