Sharing the pilot experience

Over the past two years, the new approach to teaching and assessing Maths has been tested and refined in pilots involving hundreds of schools and colleges and thousands of students. AQA and OCR have been running GCSE Maths pilots and all awarding bodies have been conducting Functional Skills pilots. AQA has also partnered Leeds University Assessment and Evaluation Unit in the 14-19 Curriculum Pathways project in Maths.

A wealth of knowledge has been built up from the Maths pilot experience - especially of what worked and what didn’t.

Teachers who have concerns about the challenges ahead can now tap into that knowledge bank, and benefit from the experiences of pilot teachers, to help them prepare to teach Maths in 2010.

What the pilot teachers say

Because the style of the questions is different, the students need to be prepared. We’ve tried to familiarise students with the data sheets,so that they are already aware of where to find information and the kind of problems that could arise from a set of data… That style of question isn’t in our current Maths GCSE.

Phil Eadie, Maths teacher, The Thomas Hardey School, Dorchester

When you pose a problem and pupils have to think for themselves, it’s been quite a challenge. That’s been the biggest thing… I think that stepping back a bit is even more important now. Functional Maths… is very much geared to helping them to develop skills, which then they’ve got to figure out for themselves how to apply.

Leanne Williams, Subject Leader: Maths, Vyners School, Uxbridge

Teachers need to start with students in Year 7 and to seriously consider how they are going to amend the scheme of work. They need to start including more open, extended tasks, where students are allowed to have their own lines of inquiry, follow their own ideas and understand what it means to actually think like a mathematician… It’s a big change for teachers in some schools, who’ll have to start thinking about extended tasks that they can do with their students.

Tracy Helliwell, Head of Maths, Kingsfield School