Episode 179: Introducing our Qualification Programme

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. Welcome back to another super exciting episode of the School of School podcast. And today we're going to be a little bit selfish and we're going to talk about some of the stuff we're doing at Maths — No Problem! because there's a lot of exciting things going on. So I've got Adam here and I've got Robin here. You're both going to say hi, together. See, you guys got to do it with visual clues. You got to look at each other and go...

Robin Potter

What is this?

Andy Psarianos

Can you do it?

Robin Potter

Okay.

Adam Gifford

Just Are you ready, Robin? Let's do it.

Robin Potter

Hi.

Adam Gifford

Hi.

Andy Psarianos

That was rubbish. All right, you guys failed.

Adam Gifford

Maybe I'm further away than Robin.

Robin Potter

Yeah, there was a lag.

Adam Gifford

That's what's happened.

Robin Potter

It was a lag.

Adam Gifford

That caused the lag.

Andy Psarianos

It is a lag.

Adam Gifford

Transatlantic lag.

Andy Psarianos

I want to talk to you guys about professional development. And in particular, I want to talk, I want, Adam, I want you to tell us about the work that you're doing right now developing this qualification programme because it's generating a lot of interest. And I think it's something that hasn't been done before, at least that I know of, really well. And I think it's super cool. And I want you just tell us what you're doing. And also tie in some of that stuff that you're doing with our accredited schools, with developing lessons and reviewing lessons and stuff because it's so interesting.

Adam Gifford

So it's a really exciting year. I am incredibly excited going into this new academic year because I think one of the big struggles with schools is how do you manage really good professional development? And how do you take the guesswork out of it? And also how do you know that someone has a skill set that you are looking for to make sure that your mathematics programme is sound and it's pedagogically intact? So one of the things that we've spent a long time developing, and it's a, you're right, a threefold approach, I suppose, is that in the first instance, we looked at qualifications. And we've got our Maths — No Problem! teacher, Maths — No Problem! expert teacher, and Maths — No Problem! master teacher. Three levels of qualification that would indicate the ability to develop and continually improve, not just maths education, but pedagogical approaches in general teaching across schools.

So as that as a starting place and starting in the classroom with lessons and then moving through and saying, how can we have an influence on professional development in a school setting? So across colleagues and making sure there's the capacity to support colleagues in school, all the way through to how do we ensure that we can support colleagues outside of our schools and in wider networks to make sure that we've got the best approach to teaching and learning mathematics possible. And so that's what we set out to achieve. We knew that alongside that, we needed to put into place a really well-structured and crafted professional development programme. So I think that what's sometimes we misunderstood with some of the programmes that were offered in the past is the rationale. So we look at something like, I'll take a whole numbers course, for example. You look at that and say, Yeah, but we know how to add and subtract. We've been doing it since we're wee kids. Why would we think about that?"

And then you start to look and you say, "Okay, let's have a look at what the curriculum's made up of." Let's have a look at where our children, if we're looking at the SATs for example, there was a lot of press around this year's SATs that certain questions were problematic. When we look back at the content that's involved in those areas, it's the curriculum. This sounds so obvious, but the problem is that if we don't look at it in-depth and we don't understand how things develop, it becomes problematic. If we just assume that these things are straightforward, it becomes problematic. So having a qualification that tells us that these individuals are highly competent, they're able to support colleagues, having a professional development programme that says, if you want to progress through these qualification levels we'll support you with every step of the way.

So whether it's the first time that you're coming into a classroom and you're making sure that your lesson is as well done as pedagogically sound as possible, all the way through to, I'm working across multi-academy trusts. I want to evaluate, interpret, and analyse assessment data so I can start to plan my budget for three years to ensure that professional development is targeted well. Real opposite ends of the spectrum that our programme takes us all the way through there. But not only that, I think that underlying this, we use our textbooks as a resource to support really good teaching and learning.

So it's not just about the use of the textbook, it's also coming in and revising on a, we go through an improvement cycle as well. So being able to think, how do we best improve our product? We go back to the community. But it's not just one-way traffic. That might sound quite almost selfish and saying, "What we want you guys to feed back is, are our resources supporting the learning of these key mathematical ideas?"

But as part of this process, using lesson study as the basis and using the principles and theories of lesson study, the professional development opportunities that we are giving to our community, to be part of the conversation, to be analytical about the lessons, to think about the key learning that takes place, collaborative planning. All of these things contribute to ensuring that we've got an amazing resource and another area of professional development at each year group. And it ties in with a qualification programme and the CPD programme that work in-sync to make sure that there's a clearly defined path that can be planned for, not ad hoc, not just like, I feel like someone says, "I've not been on a course for a while." Yeah, okay, you can go. It's your turn. This is something that treats the profession as exactly that, as a group of professionals that need a well-clarified and well-defined programme that supports that professional development in line with experience and expertise.

Andy Psarianos

But there's also a self-sustaining element to all of this, right?

Adam Gifford

Yes.

Andy Psarianos

Can you get into that a little bit too, because I think that's really important as well.

Adam Gifford

As we move through, there's a few, a final stage that exists as well, which is our licenced trainers. So part of this is that if you build the capacity within our schools and you continue to build capacity within your schools, you'll always have that self-sustainability just in the first instance because you're in a position to support colleagues. But once someone has the master teacher qualification, they're then eligible to become a Maths — No Problem! licenced trainer.

This means that they can deliver our programmes effectively, our training programmes on behalf of Maths — No Problem! So we recognise the level of expertise that's been worked towards, that's been demonstrated in the community. And now we are saying, here are our resources that we put together. We spend a long time making sure that they support the learning of whatever the course may be. And schools then have the opportunity to start delivering training. Now, whether that's to their own staff and to help them on a qualification journey or whether it's to the community, wider community around them.

So it is taking it all the way through. The breadth of impact that our practitioners can have is huge. And we want to support them with that all the way through. And I think that this is something that is really missing, I think, generally in education. I think that you get a lot of support in your first year of teaching. After that, it's really school dependent and making decisions around what the next steps are are really difficult.

I want a senior leader's hat, and it's hard. And you need help to make sure that the money that you're investing in your staff is the right investment and it's going to pay something back. You don't just want to be doing something because it's someone's turn or it's left to chance. And I think that if you take it all the way through to the end, these are people who might generate a bit of revenue for the school as well, because it recognizances a level of expertise that we understand and we know exists within our community.

Andy Psarianos

One of the things that I find frustrating with the education sector is that there's always this call it excuse or expectation that someone's going to come in and solve these problems for you. The government's going to do it through policy or funding or whatever the case may be. So this is giving back to the community, in my opinion, is giving back to the community the power to self-regulate and to teachers doing stuff for teachers. This is a community-led initiative. The whole thing. It's about letting the community serve itself. And it's by the community for the communities is something that we're... It's actually the tagline of our next upcoming community event in November 28th. We want the community take ownership. And the accredited schools are playing a huge role in this. What are the accredited schools and what do they do for us? I don't know, Robin, if you want to tackle that one.

Robin Potter

What don't the accredited schools do for us? So you and I had an opportunity, Andy, to go and visit our accredited schools. This is something that was started, I believe, pre-COVID, pre-pandemic. And basically it's what we would consider our leaders. And those that have been with Maths — No Problem! for many years, since inception, many of them, who demonstrate a high level of expertise. Let's summarise it that way because they all bring different and unique things to the accredited school community. But, in general, their expertise level is quite high.

And when we visited them, they all were so positive about the CPD certification programme that they were our, what do you think about this? How do you feel about it? All very positive. And through that, I know Adam, you've spent a lot of time developing how this will actually work. And we've got our accredited schools now. We have, I believe our first nine trainers certified at this point, which is extremely exciting and extremely exciting for them and their schools because as you've already mentioned, Andy, they're doing this anyway. They're already training their teachers. So now why not do it on a professional level where we're encouraging this and they can share their knowledge and they can share it with their own teachers, but they can also share it with teachers from other schools. And yeah, it's a real win-win.

Andy Psarianos

And teachers get qualifications. They get qualifications. So it's not unrecognised achievements.

Robin Potter

Exactly. It's not this, let's show you how this is done.

Andy Psarianos

There's a path for them to work towards.

Robin Potter

We're going to teach you this and you're actually going to get certification for it. It's very exciting.

Andy Psarianos

And Adam, why is it so important, do you think, that the community be involved at this level in the whole thing?

Adam Gifford

I think that you have to, there's a few reasons. One, you have to tap into the level of expertise. When you put all these people together in a room and you just look simply not just at the number of years, because there's plenty of people that have been in education for a very long time. That doesn't necessarily equate to them being good. But what the common thread is for all of the professionals that I've had the pleasure of working with, and particularly in the accredited schools, is there's a continual cycle of improvement. There's a continual curiosity is to how to be better. So I think that in working with the experts within the community, these are people who day in day out are supporting others with their mathematics programmes. They're developing their own expertise in a huge amount of different ways, tapping into their own research, for example.

And there's that willingness to share with us. And I think that's a huge thing because they believe in the product. And they believed in it for a long time. As I said, that cycle of improvement, I think there's an expectation on us to do that, which is what we've always done. And I think too, from their side of things, it's understanding and recognising that level of expertise and understanding that we can work together to help each other. That's a really crucial part of it, that balanced approach to you are helping us, we are helping you. And with the unwavering focus on trying to support children to learn mathematics. And I think that's the other part of it is that that doesn't get lost in amongst all of this. This is about supporting as many children as possible to be able to learn mathematics really well and give them a huge life chance.

So I think that that level of expertise that we've got, who are committed to and understand and endorse the approach and what we do, I think to have those people supporting us to develop the programmes and whatever we do is absolutely crucial. And I think we can offer things that are difficult to do within your own school. So like the revision cycle of our textbooks. That can't be replicated in, you can't replicate that. So being able to contribute to a cycle of development based on lesson study on a product that's in hundreds of schools throughout the UK, that's an experience that... There are very few people that are going to get that.

So I think it's these opportunities. We have the opportunity to consider professional development programmes in a way that certainly you just simply don't have time or quite possibly the expertise as your classroom teacher and as a senior leader. It's the same. It's that we develop the professional development within our schools, but there has to be a complementary aspect to that. That's what we've got in our company is we've got an opportunity to consider these things over time and develop them over time and have that feedback. And again, that's a position that when you're working full-time in schools, almost impossible to achieve. Certainly not on the scale that we've done. So I think that coming into this new year, the offer is geographically wider than it's ever been, offering multi-day courses because we recognise that that leadership element, that change management element is such a crucial part of a ongoing progression of your own professional development within school.

So ensuring that we've got courses that that's part of it, that the evaluation of change. And again, it's something in education we don't tend to do very well. We're good at making changes. But when you ask about evaluation of change, reflection on change, it's not done so well. But the best leaders that we work with, that is just an inherent part of the cycle. And I think that these are the sorts of things that people need an opportunity to be able to develop it in a structured way so it's not left to chance and have a space in which they can genuinely reflect and evaluate on this. And that feeds into that leadership capacity and that whole cycle around change management. So considering all of these things going into the next academic year. And I also think too, I think that I've worn a head teacher's hat, if I know that people have got these qualifications, it means something.

I know what I can expect. I know what I'm going to get. So again, it's not left to chance. So I think that all of these areas are in-sync. It's something that we'll continually evaluate as well. And I just think that it is designed to support at every level. So as I said, making decisions around what does my professional development plan look like over the next three years. I think too, I think in terms of accountability, just as a side to this, but it's a really important part of all schools' lives.

Regardless what people think about Ofsted or high-stakes accountability in the UK, one thing that we know from accredited schools who have been part Ofsted deep dives into mathematics is that one of the strengths, in all of the schools that have fed back about their experience and getting the feedback from Ofsted, is there's a really strong expectation and reasonable one too, that a professional development plan is in place over years. And so for a mathematics programme, what does it look like over a number of years? How are you going to continually improve? And for some schools, that's a really difficult question to answer. That's where we can come in and say, "Here, this is what the next steps look like. This is what it's going to look like next. This is what you can expect to see." So I think it's trying to make it fit.

Andy Psarianos

So where do people go to get more information? What do they need to do? How do they get started?

Adam Gifford

Come to our website. I think that's first port of call. Come to our website.

Andy Psarianos

mathsnoproblem.com.

Adam Gifford

mathsnoproblem.com.

Andy Psarianos

Click on training.

Adam Gifford

Click on training.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, we've got that. And once you go into training and you can start to look at the qualifications, you can start to see the path that you need to take. Starting with it. We always recommend, particularly maths leads, but we want everyone to do it, the three-day The Essentials of Teaching Maths Mastery course. It's a bit like when we talk about early years, mathematics being the foundations for everything to come. That's exactly what this is. Everything branches off that. And it's such a crucial course, that when you listen to people who have done it, they come out the other side differently in a better way. And understand it's not everything that comes after it. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And we know that that's a really good foundation to work from.

Andy Psarianos

Well, thanks so much, guys. Thanks so much, guys, for telling everybody about it. I think it's exciting. I think the work you guys are doing is amazing, by the way. So good job.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Adam Gifford

We'll keep you posted.

Andy Psarianos

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