Episode 173: Is this the most maths-loving guest we’ve ever had?

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, the two usuals beaming in from Canada. I think this is the case at least. Andy and Robin, how are you both today?

Robin Potter

Very well.

Andy Psarianos

Doing good.

Robin Potter

Yes.

Adam Gifford

Wonderful. And coming in from the big city, Laurice Prempeh from Rosetta Primary School. Laurice, welcome to the School of School podcast. How are you?

Laurice Prempeh

I'm really good. Thank you. It's nice to see everybody.

Robin Potter

Great to see you.

Adam Gifford

Good, good, good. And as this is being recorded, you're counting down the days, it's just about the end of this current school year. Have you had a good one?

Laurice Prempeh

It's been phenomenal. I've absolutely loved it. I've been leading year five and six this year, so at the moment as well as wrapping up a year, we're wrapping up a phase in some children's education, so it's really exciting. It's lovely. Very nostalgic at the moment.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. Lots of tears being shed too, probably over the last few days. Just before we carry on and get deeper into school. For listeners that have never met you, that haven't had the pleasure of meeting you, Laurice, I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about yourself and possibly a wee bit about Rosetta too.

Laurice Prempeh

Yeah, of course. So I've worked at Rosetta for 13 years. I trained there. I did my teacher training and then I stayed. So I was in class for 11 years. I've been out of class now for two years as an assistant headteacher. I've led maths at the school for about seven years. Whenever I'm asked, the number of years always seems fuzzy, but it's about seven. And I've taught from reception up to year six at Rosetta.

Andy Psarianos

What's your favourite age group to teach?

Laurice Prempeh

Oh, that's a hard one. They've all got their different reasons for me loving them. So I love the innocence and the foundation building with the younger children, but then I love really getting my head around some really good problem solving in the older children. So I can't choose.

Adam Gifford

That's completely reasonable.

Robin Potter

Pretty awesome.

Adam Gifford

It's like it's being told which is your favourite child and you have to say, well, for me it's my son. And then I have to say, but it's also my daughter. So for both of them, they're both my favourite children when I ask them.

Laurice Prempeh

Absolutely.

Adam Gifford

And I think that that's the correct response in terms of phases for those children listening from the different year groups.

Look, we are really interested in the story of the maths programme in your school, and I know this is something that people would be able to read about and consider, but you were integral to that happening. And I was just wondering if you can take us through how you got to the maths programme you're at today, another I imagine incredibly successful year and an incredibly successful school with lots of really happy children. How did that happen because it wouldn't have been by chance?

Laurice Prempeh

So our journey with Maths — No Problem! started about nine years ago. And I always remember because my oldest son was in year one when we started Maths — No Problem! And he's currently in year nine. So we started nine years ago and we rolled it out across the whole school. It was really daunting, and I'll be honest, we weren't all completely on board because my deputy head went to Singapore, and he-

Robin Potter

When you say we.

Laurice Prempeh

I.

Robin Potter

Are you talking you as well?

Laurice Prempeh

I wasn't. I always admit that I wasn't because I feel like I have to be really honest about why I wasn't. And then I think it hits home a little bit more about why I'm so passionate about it now because I didn't understand. I didn't understand it in the beginning. I just heard the word textbook and straight away myself and a few other teachers felt like we were going to get our personalization stripped away as soon as the scheme was actually introduced to us and we saw what it was about, it's been a phenomenal journey of us coming to understand all of the nuances in the programme and really developing an experience in our school where now all of our children have only ever learned this way, and I'm so glad that it's something my deputy at the time sort of made that decision for us to embark on.

I don't know if I mentioned, we rolled it out whole school as well at the time from year one to six. And at the time, I was in year five. And it was interesting because the textbook and workbooks were only available up to year four at that point, and year five and six would get there into October, November. So I had the amazing benefit of exploring the scheme as a year five teacher without the physical resources, but really getting my head around the way that it should be implemented and the way that it should be taught without having the resource.

So I think that was a really exciting time as a class teacher and for my children as well, because they had this resource that ... We met the characters on screen, but we didn't have the books, we didn't have the posters and things like that. But yeah, the journey has been phenomenal. We had a pause obviously during lockdown, but we are getting back to a place where the teachers,

The children, are all really confident or really happy in using the scheme and applying the scheme.

Robin Potter

So I kind of interjected there.

Laurice Prempeh

No, that's okay.

Robin Potter

I sent you on a path. You were sharing how it all began and you said ... Go ahead. I think I've jogged your memory.

Laurice Prempeh

Yes. So we rolled it out in the whole school and then we had training. We did have whole school training. We had somebody come in from Maths — No Problem! And we had whole school training, which sort of put everybody at ease. We got more of an understanding because when you have one person come and say, "This is amazing, this is what we're doing," it's very different to having somebody who could sort of explain the ins and outs of the scheme to us. So that put everybody at ease.

We then were really in a fortunate place to be able to fully resource the school as well, so we could resource ourselves in terms of the manipulatives that we needed to ensure that we could implement the scheme as effectively as possible.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. So critical.

Laurice Prempeh

When I became the subject lead, I then undertook a lot of personal professional development myself because I wanted to make sure that I was always in a position that I could support teachers and that I had a deep enough understanding to support teachers that were new to the school and had never used Maths — No Problem! before, and existing teachers as well. Every now and again, everybody needs a little bit of a brush-up, so I just wanted to make sure that my subject knowledge was always as strong as it could be so that I could support my teachers. And I felt like we've maintained that and kept that going over time.

Andy Psarianos

So what were some of the challenges that the teachers were facing before you introduced the scheme? If you go back, what was happening and what made you guys decide that you needed to go down this path?

Laurice Prempeh

I think in retrospect, we were being very random. I think at the time, we didn't know we were being quite random in the way that we planned because if we knew, we wouldn't have done it. But looking back, and I look back at the way I used to plan things myself, and we'd have to generate all of our own resources, all of our own worksheets, all of our own questions, and my process was very much, oh, okay, I know that my more able children will be able to do this really easily. And so my next step was too much. I look back now and I know that. I know that we were the coherence that's fantastically apparent in Maths — No Problem! wasn't apparent in the way that we were delivering lessons.

So in retrospect, just the random sort of ... To an extent, the randomization. Also, our subject knowledge was ... The quality of the lessons being provided was very dependent on the teacher subject knowledge. So there might have been a bit of a variety depending on where you were in the school in terms of what was being applied. Whereas with Maths — No Problem!, their subject knowledge has to match what's being taught as opposed to the lesson matching who the teacher is if that makes sense. I've had to, as a subject leader, make sure that everybody has the required amount of subject knowledge because I know what they have to be able to deliver. So that really helped.

Andy Psarianos

So can you just explain what you mean by coherence because I think we know what you mean by coherence, but I think for some members of our audience, they might not be familiar with the term.

Laurice Prempeh

Yeah, of course. When I refer to coherence, I'm talking about the small steps in the learning, and I think as a teacher with no guidance, which is when handed a national curriculum document and you're told to plan a sequence of learning for edition in year two, for example, you have very little to help you understand how incrementally the children need to learn and need to build on their understanding.

When I refer to coherence, I'm talking about those small steps that are required in the children's learning and in Maths — No Problem!, that's really, really carefully built in and designed. I remember when we first started with the scheme, my year five teachers, I think there were something like 18 fractions lessons, and they said to me, "Why are there so many?" And it was an amazing opportunity for me to develop the teacher's understanding of coherence and the fact that each lesson incrementally built on the idea in the prior lesson and that it was so needed. And that's the way that children learn.

If we go back to is it zones of proximal development, looking at that and explaining that the children need those small steps in order to not get lost and in order for us to leave no child behind as is hoped for and expected in Maths — No Problem!

Adam Gifford

I'm wondering Laurice. That when... I've been fortunate enough to visit your school. And it seemed to me that there is a real consistency when you're walking around the school. Consistency in appraoch and there's been some quite I think deliberate decision that you have made as you've gone through. Can recognise some of the decisions that you have made and things that you have to keep doing to maintain that consistency across the school?

Laurice Prempeh

Yeah, definitely. Some of the things that as a subject lead I'm really precise about in terms of consistency is the oracy: developing the oracy of our children. So in order to make sure we're developing mathematical thinkers, my planning ... The expectation for planning is that STEM sentences are built into lessons. I don't want copious amounts of slides because I don't feel that they're beneficial to the children. For me, the conversation had between the teachers is more important. So again, it's how do I evidence that? How can I tell? It's by talking to my children, seeing if their pupil voice is being developed, can they demonstrate to me that they understand what they've done in the lesson the previous day, the previous week. So hopefully when you walked around, you would've seen that the children are speaking in full sentences. The children are having conversations with their peers that are not completely adult-led because this is the way that they know a maths lesson is supposed to happen.

The maths lesson shouldn't be silent. Apart from that sort of five, 10 minutes at the end, maybe where independent practise is happening, I do want a classroom that is buzzing and excited. Also, my journals. So I was fortunate enough to go to see Adam on a journaling course, but our journals are something that we help to develop with that mathematical thinking as well because I know that if children can't speak it, they can't evidence it, they're not going to be able to write it. So that's another really big reason why we foster so much of that talking and that developing the children's ability to talk about their learning. Thinking about where that happens as well. Mostly the anchor task. As a subject leader, we had a huge push on developing the way and the quality of that anchor task. And it was a lot to do with my teacher subject knowledge because some teachers thought, how can I make this one-sentence question last 15 minutes?

Now I have some teachers who will come to me and say the conversation was so rich, it was so deep that it lasted 20, 25 minutes. And that makes me really, really proud as a subject lead that my teachers are now confident enough and my learners are passionate and confident enough to be able to follow through and have that level and that depth of conversation. So hopefully that's what you saw, Adam.

Adam Gifford

That's exactly what I saw, Laurice. And actually, I just want to pick up on one thing. I just want to pick up on one thing. You are talking about your school, and of course, you talk about your colleagues. And a school is the sum of its parts. So it's like the children, all of the people that put all the effort in. But I just want to focus on you for a second. You've gone from classroom teacher to maths lead and part of the senior leadership team? What have you learned along the way when you are looking back on this implementation that you've been part of the whole way through, and you've kind of worn different hats all the way through as well. So that's a real transition. What are your big takeaways when you reflect back on that transition for you from classroom teacher to senior leader and amongst all of this?

Laurice Prempeh

That's an amazing question. So at the time, I wasn't in a senior leader position and being in class, I felt like it was maybe too much too soon. But I think it was because at that point we hadn't had the whole school training, and I didn't fully understand what we were going into.

As a senior leader now, so when I introduced journals, for example, I thought back to how I felt when I was told that we were going to be starting something new and I wanted to make sure that the teachers had an understanding of the benefits of it and why it would be useful. So we did activities so that teachers could see why I wanted that to happen and why I thought it was beneficial for the learners. So my journey has sort of gone from being on the receiving end of something that maybe I didn't completely understand.

I very quickly came around to it, I promise. But then using that feeling and using that understanding moving forward as a subject leader to make sure that there's always an understanding of the benefit to our learners and the benefit of developing teachers professionally to any decision that I make. I feel like that put me in a position to lead in a more effective way because I understood what implementation felt like on a receiving end, so that whenever I want to implement something or change something or adjust something, I know that I need to make sure that there's an understanding coming from my teachers. And I hope that that's made me a stronger leader and more able to affect the change that I want to happen in terms of maths.

Adam Gifford

I've no doubt. I've no doubt because I think part of, if you were evaluating that for me, it's like have you taken people with you? And I think that that comes back, that consistency in the school is that it's easy to go in and say, right, everyone, you are all doing this. Right? You end of story, you're all doing it. It's a policy document now. That's it done. That's easy. Anyone can say that. Making it work and taking everyone with you a different story. And I guess then walking through, if you see that, then that on its own tells a story. So I think that that sort of empathetic part that you tap into, I think yeah, it's a really interesting one. And that's one that, I don't know, from what I've seen, it's I'm sure valued in your school.

Andy Psarianos

Robin and I visited your school last year in September.

Robin Potter

Yes, we did.

Andy Psarianos

And it was great because we were on this big road trip and we were visiting lots of schools. And I have to say, your school really stood out. And one of the things that really stood out at your school for me anyway, was this sheer kind of delight that this aura in the school where all of you just really seemed so excited about what you were doing. So passionate and just generally happy.

The teachers, they're so willing to communicate what's working for them, what's not working for them with us, but also just everyone has a huge smile on their face and they just seems so proud of what they do. And when you hear in the press about teaching in schools, it's the complete opposite story. Why is your school so magical? What are you guys doing that's so right?

Robin Potter

Tell us the recipe.

Laurice Prempeh

Oh, that's so lovely to hear. And I think my teachers, I'll go back and I'll say that to them, and I think they're all really proud of that. I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself in that I absolutely love what I do. I love working with children in general, but I love maths. I'm so incredibly passionate about maths. Sometimes it can be annoying. I know I can be annoying because of how much I enjoy and I love maths.

I think I've said before, maths games were my way of fun when I was little. It's not just been since I became a teacher. I've always genuinely had a passion for maths. And I think people come into schools and they either really don't like maths because they feel like they weren't good at it or they like it. You generally don't get a lot of people who love maths. And I think because I've been there for such a long time, I was the longest in-class teacher, everybody there knows me really well. And I think they all know how I feel about maths. And I like to think I have quite good relationships.

So hopefully when people talk about maths, there's sort of a nod to the fact that they know everything I'm bringing it in is coming from a place of heart, I genuinely love and I'm genuinely passionate about everything that I ask everybody to do. Every conversation I have with anybody, no matter how busy, no matter what I was supposed to be doing, if it is about our curriculum and it's about our children and it's about their maths learning, it's genuinely coming from a place of genuine care. It's not about the data. It's not about what anybody external thinks.

Hearing what you said, I'm thinking some of it I think rubs off a little bit on people, I'd like to think because I'm not leading the subject for any other reason apart from the fact that it's what I genuinely love. And I think that that sort of mirrors. I've seen over time a little bit people don't ... They don't seize up, they're not as nervous anymore, they're not worried because I've tried to create a relationship where it's safe to talk about maths, even if the lesson hasn't gone well, it's a really safe space. So I think the excitement and the passion that maybe you saw and the pride comes from a place of they know that we're in this together and they kind of want to reach the expectations that I've set.

Robin Potter

Well, what do you think everyone? I mean, Laurice ...

Andy Psarianos

I'd like to send my kids to your school. Too bad they're in their 20s.

Robin Potter

They might be a bit old, but ...

Andy Psarianos

Maybe they can go.

Laurice Prempeh

They might not be okay with that.

Andy Psarianos

Go there and learn. No, maybe they can learn to be a teacher.

Laurice Prempeh

Oh, that's so lovely.

Robin Potter

Because you sure are a good one.

Laurice Prempeh

Oh, thank you.

Robin Potter

Well, thank you so much for being on. We really, really have enjoyed this, and we'd love to have you on again. So maybe ...

Laurice Prempeh

You're so welcome. I could talk maths all day.

Andy Psarianos

Thanks, Laurice. Thank you for joining us on the School of School Podcast.