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Methods of working together used by the maths teams: details
In all schools, most of the time in department meetings was spent discussing the teaching of mathematics; it varied whether this was a free discussion or managed by the HoD, and whether it was seen a routine meeting or a training event.
There were multiple ways of working together, formal and informal. All schools eventually had joint planning systems in place ('less planning but richer planning' one teacher said), discussed associated pedagogy, and sometimes managed to debrief together. In one school there was a day-long review session at the end of the first year at which teachers' experiences with all the shared, agreed, tasks were discussed. In this school they not only all used the same tasks, but also made decisions about how technical language would be introduced, what metaphors would be used (e.g. 'balance' for equations; 'follow a rule' for loci) and so on. One HoD said that 'talkalot' improved the whole planning approach. Another HoD wanted the team to use the resources she knew had potential, and spend their time talking about the pedagogy rather than the resources.
Of course, informal context varies according to the time of year and how tired and busy people are, but a core group of teachers in each school expected to spend time together at the end of the day, being around and sharing ideas. The presence of ITTs and NQTs was a great help in ensuring this continued: "having NQTs helps us to plan better" because of the need to communicate as a team and be more explicit, take less for granted. Their input was valued because although they had less experience they were also more adaptable.
In all schools some time was given to doing mathematics together, either working on some ideas presented to the team, or for new-to-them topics such as 'logic' learning some unfamiliar ideas, or doing tasks presented at various inset sessions. One HoD said that subject knowledge might be a weakness: 'we need to do maths together'. The LS approach to deciding on metaphors, language and tasks together helps with this. At FH there was discussion about how particular tasks offered the opportunity for a range of outcomes in relation to the same key mathematical idea, as it emerges in different ways at different NC levels. This discussion might also have helped non-specialist teachers to see how ideas connect within mathematics.
At some of the longer meetings we were struck by the need for them to listen carefully to each other. In any group of teachers there will be those who are eager to express their views and others who do not. One episode illustrates the kind of thing that happened. One teacher mentioned the value of asking learners to classify a set of examples but no one picked this up. An hour later there was a lively discussion about classifying led by someone else. This made us wonder if interesting ideas sometimes get lost. We noticed, however, that teachers listened intently when another teacher was introducing a classroom task. Perhaps such meetings work best when teachers all have something 'other' to look at, i.e. they are looking in the same direction towards their classrooms, rather than being offered tasks that are directed at them.
In SP a visiting HoD gave a talk about how her department moved from open tasks to a combination of starting points plus interesting questions that was more focused on a narrower range of possible learning outcomes.
In LS, the HoD spoke last when teachers were sharing ideas, if at all, unless he was asked his opinion earlier. We contrasted this with HoDs who talk first and most in meetings, and wondered if this silences discussion - less confident staff may feel they are being told what to do. We also noticed that participation in discussion was lower if HoDs introduced tasks which were more like professional development tasks than classroom tasks. Whereas HoDs do have a development role, overt 'training' which is not directly associated with day-to-day work seemed to be more well-received when it was a separate event. By contrast, discussion around a classroom task was often rich in ideas about better teaching.
