A blog by Emma Brooksbank – Assistant Head of Maths, Parkside School
The Big 5 Ideas
Starting the Teaching for Mastery Secondary Specialist course can be very daunting. You are given these 5 big ideas that you have to integrate into your teaching practice in the first year, then work to develop mastery in your department in your second year, before then working with other schools in their departments. Where do you start? What do these big ideas look like? This is where the residentials come in to play.
To start with, the residentials make you realise you are not alone. Some cohorts in each hub are actually quite small. As a cohort we were really lucky to have 6 teachers starting together, making the start of the journey feel quite safe and supportive. If you don’t have that luxury, the residentials are the place to meet others, share ideas and find out what other things are going on around the country. They are run by the NCETM, so you have experts at your fingertips, ready to challenge your thinking or to simply point you in the right direction.
The next thing the residentials tackle is the 5 big ideas. The first three residentials really focus on developing your teaching practice. The 5 big ideas are explored; both individually and combined. You have the chance to look at concrete examples, access to support for planning, and a chance to discuss with others how you might go about implementing those big ideas in your practice. It made a huge difference for us; we now knew what we were aiming for in our lessons.
Another big thing during the residentials is that time to reflect. You have a built-in reflection time at the end of the second day, but you find that you are constantly reflecting on your practice throughout the sessions; how can I improve what I am doing? Can I incorporate that idea in my lesson tomorrow?
As a cohort we have just had our 4th residential, the first of our second year in the programme. The reflection time really enabled us to focus on how we might start developing Mastery in our department, and really got us thinking, not about how we can use things in our lessons, but how we can introduce things to others.
Ultimately, the residentials are a fantastic opportunity that bring all aspects of the programme together. The mastery skills we have developed both individually and as a team, have been hugely supported by these residentials, and they make up the core of the Teaching for Mastery Secondary Specialist programme.