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Methods of working together used by the maths teams: summary
- Formal and informal: timetabled meetings; in each others' classrooms after school; extra meetings; in staffrooms; on accredited courses
- Joint planning sessions: planned and prepared for everyone; working in pairs in protected time; working in pairs whenever they could; emailed discussions
- Doing maths together: mathematical tasks (for self or for using) in department meetings; organised workshops
- Shared planning and debriefing: planning, observing and/or debriefing between the planners.
- Importance of 'talkalot': generating atmosphere of talking; 'hanging out' after school
- Special review sessions: annual full reviews of every module and the resulting learning and problems
- Core group of teachers who spend time together: in all schools some were unintentionally excluded from the core because of other commitments
- Importance of NQTs and PGCE students as catalyst for talk: departments see mentoring new teachers as a joint task
- Discussion of what images, methods, metaphors to use as a department common approach: in two schools this was a deliberate move during department meetings to ensure continuity for learners
- Discussion: there is a need to manage discussion so it is not dominated by a few
- Teachers paid more attention to each other's ideas if they were expressed in the context of a classroom task rather than theoretically or generally
- Visitors were used to present alternative ways of doing things
- Role of HoD varied between schools and between meetings: leader, presenter, participant, listener, tea-maker
All three schools made significant use of opportunities to work together outside regular scheduled meetings. FH invited Mike Ollerton (for his key publications see www.atm.org.uk) to help them think about planning a scheme of work for year 8, LS held weekly meetings before school specifically for curriculum and pedagogy, SP enrolled all teachers in a funded accredited course at an HEI in which they worked together to design modules of work.
