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What teachers said about the teams: details
There were often communication problems for part-time teachers, and some felt that they missed out on significant discussions or information. Teachers who joined part-way through a year could also feel as if there are unspoken assumptions about ways of working, to which they have no access. This also appeared to be true of teachers who taught year 8 of the focus cohort, having not taught year 7 and hence missed some of the development work. In one case, a teacher had confused department initiatives with school and national initiatives and drew more from the language of 'assessment for learning' than the central mathematical themes her colleagues were using.
It is likely that is discussion about how a particular task might enable a particular kind of learning, pedagogy was also discussed with the assumption that teachers would use a style of teaching and interaction that would make the link. However, in our individual interviews with and observations of teachers it was clear that there was always a wide variety of ways of teaching among all teachers, not just between the core team and those marginalised.
