About

About the Network

The idea of the Network was developed during a secondary and primary cross phase practitioner research organised between local Primary and Secondary schools in Brent and findings presented at the British Educational Research Association Mathematics Practitioner Conference on the 17th of June, 2017. The original research was themed: ‘Broken Maths – mending connections in teaching & learning in the transition from KS2 to 3’, looking into reasons for the poor mastery of mathematics of pupils in KS3 and the perceived lack of enjoyment of mathematics in the primary and secondary phases.  The research later developed into exploring the impact of teacher identity and practice on pupil learning and consequently attainment. The Mathematics Pedagogy Network aims to bring a solution to the some of the findings of the research, providing support and a platform for teachers to develop their identity as mathematics teachers in ways that supports their taking proactive action in teaching and in as many other areas of the education setting they feel empowered to act.

 

About the Founder

For close to six years,  Ben Okoh has been working with the Institute for Mathematical Pedagogy run by Professors John Mason, Anne Watson and the late Malcolm Swan. These professional development sessions were the most impactful he had experienced and observed that these models of professional development were approached within the ideals of teacher self discovery.

These experiences encouraged him to study Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at the UCL Institute of Education to understand the best teacher professional development approaches that encourage teachers to notice and be aware of their actions in the classroom as well as those of the student they teach.

On the 30th of September 2016, Ben decided to put some of the principles observed at the IMP and the CPA masters course by self-funding and organising a professional development day for primary teachers, secondary teachers, initial teacher trainers, Maths hub leads and mathematics education lecturers to work together, engaging in rich mathematical tasks with their fellow teachers and engaging with key mathematical ideas at a deep level with the idea that experiencing the struggles involved in learning, helps them to understand the challenges their students face and to offer appropriate prompts and questions to support learning (BRENT teachers CPD). The success of this event led to other collaboration and work with local school and the maths hub including a professional development in the same format at the BRENT teacher CPD adopted by the Mathshub on a CPD training event as well as action research projects with secondary and feeder primary schools on improving teacher development to solve the problems of transition between the educational phases (British Educational Research Association). Examples of some of the other work completed can be found on www.stemfutureleaders.com .

Currently, Ben works to support schools with developing mathematics programmes that support deep conceptual understanding of mathematics as well as professional development for teachers. For more information, email: benokoh @ mathspedagogy.org .