Episode 168: Nine years on, Langley Green’s story with Maths — No Problem!

Andy Psarianos

Hi, I'm Andy Psarianos.

Robin Potter

Hi, I'm Robin Potter.

Adam Gifford

Hi, I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is The School of School podcast.

Welcome to The School of School podcast.

Adam Gifford

Welcome back. It's another episode of The School of School Podcast. I'm here with the two regulars, Andy and Robin. How are you both?

Andy Psarianos

Good. Good.

Robin Potter

I'm very good. Thanks, Adam.

Adam Gifford

Good, good, good. And I'm really excited because we've got the full lineup from Langley Green School in Crawley, a school that I know and love to bits. And actually the last time I was there, I did say to them... Close your ears, Andy. I said, "I'd love to be a teacher at your school. It's a school I'd love to come and work at." We've got Lucy, Debbie, and Alison. Welcome. Welcome to The School of School podcast. Perhaps you could start us off just by introducing yourselves to us.

Debbie Lewis

I'm Debbie Lewis. I'm Maths Lead here, a huge Maths — No Problem! fan and I've been Maths Lead here probably for about 15 years.

Alison Wallis

Hi, I'm Alison Wallis, Headteacher at Langley Green Primary School and have been here since we started the Maths — No Problem! journey.

Lucy Cartwright

I'm Lucy Cartwright. I'm Assistant Head at the school. I currently teach Year 6. I'm also super lucky that I've taught Maths — No Problem! in every year group from 1 to Year 6. And also, I love Maths — No Problem!

Robin Potter

Debbie, seeing you've been there for 15 years and I know that you've been with Maths — No Problem! I think, is it nine years? It's a long time.

Debbie Lewis

I think it was nine years at Easter, yeah. So yeah, just over nine years.

Andy Psarianos

Wow.

Robin Potter

I mean, that is a journey. So maybe you could just start by sharing how it all began in the beginning?

Debbie Lewis

So Alison and I started going a very long time ago, there was an information, I think it was a day up in London and I'd been waiting for a Singaporean approach, a scheme or something we could follow for quite a long time, probably about four or five years before it arrived. And I thought the approach sounded amazing and I knew it was followed in America, but we heard about the day and we'd actually booked a day for Maths — No Problem! and an alternative day with a different scheme. But we went up for the day in London and we were really blown away by the day and we didn't look any further. We cancelled our other day and we decided that we were, I'm very enthusiastic, but we should have probably waited 'til the September, but we decided to go for it straight away, so we sort taught it for a term.

That's why we always rotate at Easter because we went for it pretty much straight away, so we did a term having a go before we launched in the September and we had that conversation, didn't we, about whether we should go for whole school or, I don't know if you want to talk about that, but whether to phase it in?

Alison Wallis

Yeah, when we had the decision to make whether to launch it with the whole school or just start with specific year groups. I mean, hindsight's a wonderful thing but I think we can't change anything. We went with individual year groups and then adding year groups on each year because some schools had said if you go with the whole school, there can be some huge gaps at the top of the school. But where we are now, and we decided, we started it with Year 1 and Year 2 initially, and then each year subsequently added another year group on. So I don't know whether that was the best way to do it, but we are where we are.

Debbie Lewis

And I think Lucy was really, it's been really great because you've been right there haven't you, right from the very, very beginning.

Lucy Cartwright

Yeah.

Debbie Lewis

So Lucy was one of the teachers right at the very beginning. Were you in Year...

Lucy Cartwright

I was in Year 2, yeah.

Debbie Lewis

And you taught it straight away, didn't you?

Lucy Cartwright

Yeah.

Debbie Lewis

And what was your early experience of it like?

Lucy Cartwright

It was very different to our approach that we previously had had for maths, and it was quite difficult to start with, but we had further training, Debbie supported us. It was quite nice, it was a small team of teachers. Obviously there were four of us at the time, so we had the opportunity to observe each other. So yeah, it was quite interesting to start with. It was just very different to how we taught the approach that we used.

Debbie Lewis

One of our Ofsteds was quite early days and the Ofsted inspector came in and wasn't really interested in maths because at that point our maths results were quite good, but I think at that point, we weren't teaching it in Year 6 and we were still teaching quite an old approach. And he absolutely loved the journaling across the school and the richness, I was sort of pushing maths books under his nose. He absolutely loved that rich mastery approach and wasn't that pleased with how we were teaching maths in Year 6. But I explained that was the next layer, and I think that was the real stark contrast at that point.

It would've been about 2018, I think it was sort of two or three years in, about how that had impacted on the children and the rich mastery that we were seeing in the other year groups and then the stark contrast with Year 6 that were still doing more of an old-fashioned style approach. And they were just, the teachers were then desperate further up the school to get on and get teaching it. One of the things that was really, really key was really training people properly from the very beginning. So Lucy was the very first person that came with me on three-day training, which was with Bee, I think would've been probably 2016. Was it 15, 16?

Lucy Cartwright

Yeah. It's been, yeah.

Debbie Lewis

And then every single teacher we have that every single teacher in the school will do the three-day training, has access to the academy online, which is brilliant because teachers then can then go on and look at those lessons online that they're going to be teaching and watch those exemplars a whole as soon as accredited, we were able to get out to accredited schools.

I think Sandringham Primary School, I think we date to Katie Bowles at Sandringham. I think we've been visiting there probably for about eight years. Straight away they were offering their open mornings. We went out and gave teachers a chance to see it in practice in the classroom. So I think that's been a really key part of our journey is making sure that everyone's really properly trained to deliver the programme because I think if you don't have the proper training in place, then teachers aren't going to be giving their best and the pupils aren't going to be getting the best either. So I think that's been a real thread all the way through really, is making sure that training is in place and give teachers lots of opportunities to see other schools, but also see people within our own school.

Lucy has always got people coming into the classroom watching her teach, reflecting on their own practice. So right from 2015/16, we've really prioritised professional development for people so that it's taught the best it can possibly be taught.

Robin Potter

I would bet that when you hadn't implemented it through all the years, you must've seen a real difference when you've got the younger kids who are using the programme and they're, as you talk about, being independent and feeling confident in doing that. You might've noticed compared to the older years, like Year 6 who didn't have Math — No Problem! their confidence probably was less in the classroom or they weren't probably taking the initiative to speak out or take charge. Would you say that's somewhat accurate? I mean, even though they're older?

Lucy Cartwright

Yeah, I just think previously you would tell them how to answer a question. You'd have one on the board, you would answer it. They didn't have to think. You've told them the method, "Right, go and practise it." And yeah, now it is, "Here's the question. How are we going to answer it?" Taking all the feedback from the children. So I think they were very inactive in the lesson previously. Would you agree there?

Debbie Lewis

Quite passive learners, weren't they?

Lucy Cartwright

Passive, yeah, yeah.

Andy Psarianos

In hindsight, looking back, would you have been more ambitious maybe when starting off? So you started with Year 1 and 2, so Key Stage 1, would you now, looking back say, "You know what, we should have done a whole school adoption," or do you feel that the Year 1 and 2 start was the right way to go?

Alison Wallis

There's pros and cons because I think by starting in a really focused way, you can just make sure you are really supporting those teachers well, in terms of the CPD as well. As Debbie said, we invest a lot into the training. So possibly if we'd gone with everybody, that would've been a little bit more diluted and we wouldn't have had the resources to send everybody on the three-day training. And we absolutely don't have anybody teach without having that initial training first.

And it sounds like sort of a cop-out that I don't know. But I think the advantages and disadvantages either way, and we've got to a really strong position. So you could argue that doing that properly and being really focused, and as a school we tend to do that, we'd rather do something properly and thoroughly and make sure it's really embedded. And also, I think you've got those teachers there who then can act as mentors to the teachers that came on board in subsequent years. So you are building up that expertise as well as you go.

Andy Psarianos

I'm glad you said that because I think it's something that people really need to consider carefully, because often, and I caught you guys doing the same thing, the initial reason given for doing it one year at a time is often stated as, "Well, those children, it'll be too big of a change for them. The children that are so, let's keep them on the track that they're wrong and let's just introduce it slower." It's the rationale given is that, I don't know, for Year 4, Year 5, Year 6, it's too big of a change they've already used to kind of learning in a particular way. But when you actually sit back and reflect on it, because you exactly stated this right now, the challenge isn't really usually with the pupils. So the pupils adapt pretty quickly. The challenge to doing this successfully is the school's ability to change something as significant as this and doing it properly.

Because when you see people that struggle to succeed with introducing any new programme, it's usually the failure is not the programme itself, but it's the ability for the organisation to change. It's really hard to get people to change, especially people who have been teaching for a long time. It's like, "Hey, I've prepared all these materials over years. I know how I teach. I know this is my comfort zone. I like to go in the classroom knowing what I know and doing what I've done. And now you're asking me to do everything completely differently. I'm not so comfortable with that." And when something goes wrong and things inevitably go wrong because they always go wrong, they want to resort back to what they're comfortable with.

So how did you guys manage that change that getting people to actually change? Obviously you sent them to training and I agree that's critical, but what about the whole school itself? What did you guys have to do differently in order for this to succeed for you?

Debbie Lewis

I think it was convincing people that I know, but Lucy, you were not a massive fan to start off with, were you?

Lucy Cartwright

No, no. Yeah, it was just so different and yeah, so different to start with.

Debbie Lewis

And I think it's understanding the complexity of those lessons. Although you've got everything online, each lesson as the teacher, you are facilitating that lesson. So it requires you to really understand the lesson, really understand the misconceptions that the children might be going into that lesson with, really understanding that hub of what am I actually wanting the children to come out of this lesson, stay really understanding what's their absolute non-negotiable takeaway from this lesson that I want them leaving the lesson with? And then that really highly skilled listening to the children, adapting the learning as they go through. Making sure that as you go through the lesson you are pulling more and more children in and that you're... It is really highly skilled.

That lesson is really highly skilled. I think one of the things we've been lucky for is that Lucy is a really, really skillful teacher. And I think one of those things about persuading people is if you go and see a really skilled lesson and you see how the children are engaging, I think that's the proof of the pudding, isn't it? When you see it taught really well, you see the impact that has on the children. I think that's what teachers will take away with them. So again, I think it's what Maths — No Problem! offer with the accredited schools, when you can take teachers out, they can see really good practice in other schools and they really start to understand how impactful those lessons are, how the children will move on with their learning. I think that's what convinces people. I know that's what convinced you wasn't it, when you saw how the children responded to the lesson?

When you can see how rich those lessons are and when you teach it really well, how the children respond to that. I think that's how, and being enthusiastic, I'm a very enthusiastic Maths Lead. I love the programme. So if you are really enthusiastic about something, it's quite hard to come up with barriers against other people, isn't it? If you are enthusiastic and you're going in and pulling out strengths of people's lessons and saying, "Oh, that went really well." And the children are the biggest fans. They love the lessons. And we've had in the past, supply teachers will come in into the lesson or they haven't taught something before and they've guided the teacher through the lesson and said, "Oh, you're supposed to be doing this now. You should say this." They pretty much can do the lesson on their own, can't they?

Lucy Cartwright

Yeah, they get expectations.

Debbie Lewis

Yeah, they know exactly what they're doing. And we've had some lovely feedback from supply teachers saying, "They just guided me through the lesson," because they know exactly how it should run. And I think that's the beauty of it, is that once the children are trained, they pretty much will run the lesson and it then is down to the teacher to make sure the children are all moving together as a group and that they're all really understanding what they're learning.

Andy Psarianos

Those routines are so important. They really are.

Debbie Lewis

And it's really lovely at the moment because our Year Reception children are in the early stages of some whole class teaching. It's sort of a 25-minute session with foundations, and it's so lovely seeing the children working together with their partners, discussing it, then going back to the carpet and feeding back what they've learnt, those early, very early stages of effective partner work and working as teams. That's really lovely. You can see how that will then feed into Year 1 so that they're really skillful partners by the time they reach Year 6. They're so skillful at working together and about talking about their learning and exploring and thinking about different things they're learning and coming up with mastery challenges and things.

When I had a deep dive from the local authority and for maths before we had our Ofsted, and the lady that came in wasn't really, I would say she wasn't the most expert at primary maths and mastery, and she came into a maths lesson with me, which was Lucy's lesson, and it took her a while to grasp what was going on because it wasn't an approach that she'd experienced before. And then we came back after the lesson and interviewed the children and she was absolutely blown away because we had a child in Year 6 that was really able mathematically, and she was really articulate about how she had extended herself in the lesson and what she'd learned. And the fact that although it can appear quite simple, some of the Year 6 lessons, you think, "Oh, well that's not going to, how are they going to expect," she'd extended herself and was really articulate about that.

And I think that's what's brilliant about Maths — No Problem! is that it encourages children to extend their own learning. They're real masters of what they've learned and they're able to really take that quite widely. It was really lovely. I was cheering in the background as she was explaining her learning.

Lucy Cartwright

There's never an end to what I've done all my work, is there?

Debbie Lewis

No, I've finished.

Lucy Cartwright

I finished, yeah.

Debbie Lewis

And we used to have a little bit of that in maths in the olden days where children would say they were finished and you'd have to give them an extension. But that really doesn't happen anymore, as children will continue to extend themselves and think of different methods and different approaches. So yeah, Lucy's got one child in her class that comes up with really...

Lucy Cartwright

Yeah. It makes me think. Always extended methods on things and journaling with extended into data handling and pie charts. Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

So Lucy, what were you most anxious about at the beginning? You were reluctant, you were, I guess somewhat suspicious. What were you worried about?

Lucy Cartwright

I think previously I'd like to go into my lesson with my PowerPoint plans, knowing what was on each slide, what I was going to say. So I'd model, say calculation, you'd model how to do the addition, hand out all the sheets to the children, right or wrong, end of lesson. So it was just a very different approach of having the explore at the start of it, going into the guided practice where it's more partner work into the independent work at the end. So yeah, it was very different.

Adam Gifford

I wonder about the observations that you've made, so many of them are so lovely. And I just wonder if each of you, if there's a particular observation or something that strikes you, just one each where you think, "Yeah, we've cracked this, this is a winner." If there's any particular memories that resonate with you, if there's anything in particular from each of you that kind of thought, "Yeah, this is good"?

Debbie Lewis

Mine ultimately, I know it's not all about Ofsted, but it's when you feel really proud as a maths lead. And we did our learning walk and went from Year 6 into the nursery classroom through the school. And then I probably don't do that often enough where you just see a whole lesson all the way through the school from beginning to end, but from Year 6 right down to nursery. So you are a little bit of a chunk of a whole lesson, but then as you see the thread through the whole school, so I started off with the exploring Year 6, and then by the time I got to Year 2, we were into the workbook and then I went into the nursery and they picked out a thread. They were just doing some counting from beyond five. It just makes you feel so proud because it just feels so connected.

You can see all the learning connected all the way through the school and about how that learning journey threads its way through to the independence and the skill of some of the Year 6, a lot of the Year 6 learners. That makes you feel really proud. And I think as a school, you've always got work to do, new teachers coming in, people at different stages of development. But when you can see the children that thread right the way through from 3 to 11 years of age, so clear across the school, I think that makes you feel really proud as a Maths Lead and proud as an educator that you are facilitating that for children and that they go out of the school and they've got that really strong bedrock mathematically. I think that was so lovely for me this year, this academic year, to be able to see that and that Maths — No Problem! has given us that that's the bedrock of our learning.

Lucy Cartwright

I feel like I build on Debbie's point with the independence and seeing this thread through the school. My Year 6 class last year, I'd actually taught in Year 1. So it was really lovely to have taught the Maths — No Problem! in Year 1. And then having them again in, actually, I taught them in Year 4 and then Year 6. So it was really lovely just to see their journey through the school and what their ability was coming into Year 6 and leaving Year 6 and the independence that they had with their own learning was really excellent.

Alison Wallis

For me it would be two things. So firstly, the consistency, because as a school that's so important to us in everything we do because if you're not consistent in each class, you may as well go to seven different schools and change schools every year. So that's vital to us. And for us it's a really good vehicle for ensuring that through the school.

And secondly, how it links to our school values and promotes our school values. So those values were in place before we actually took Maths — No Problem! on, but it just aligns so well. So one of them is working together. Another one is independence, and another one is excellence. So not that it doesn't fit with the others, but those three in particular, that there's those really high aspirations for children.

You've got that teamwork, that cooperative work going on really effectively and the element of opportunity for independence within that as well. And we quite often have visitors and they cannot believe, particularly in Year 1, how children are working together, how they're coping with the reading element as well. A lot of people come in and say, "Well, our Year 1 children just wouldn't be able to do that. How on earth do they read what's in the textbook?" So again, it's that link with English and that promoting reading and everything we do as well. So I think more general, those are the things for me.

Robin Potter

Doing amazing things, Langley Green.

Andy Psarianos

Thank you for joining us on The School of School podcast.