WMCETT Mathematics Education Strategic Hub
Thursday, June 19, 4-6pm
1. Introductions and apologies
Name
Organisation
Name
Organisation
Julie
Chamberlain
WMCETT
Joan O’Hagan
NCETM Maths lead
Dennis Lennon
Coventry Adult Education
Service
Steve Pardoe
FE GCSE Maths Enhancement
Support Programme /
WMCETT
Fergus McKay
WMCETT
Martyn Quigley
Jan Myatt
Walsall College
Jan Ryan
Further Mathematics Support
Programme / School of
Mathematics, University of
Birmingham
CWT Chamber Training
Martin Newton
Stoke-on-Trent College
Larry Trueman
Hereward College
FM referred to the notes from the last meeting, and asked if there were any updates. SP said there
were some Maths Incentive Grants, which provided £20-30,000 to recruit and retain maths
graduates within the sector.
With reference to an action point from the last meeting, FM said there would have to be a
discussion with ACETT, our parent organisation, about bidding for more funds to continue the MESH
and regional meetings. There was also a discussion about running full cost MEPs. JR said providers
had to take into account increased payback from increased success rates of students from having
trainers take the course. JO’H felt training for people post-MEP was very important. MN said the cost
of upskilling people from his college had been fairly minimal, but the college would not have
invested the money if it had been £500 each. JM reported that at Walsall College four out of nine
people who had taken the course would be teaching GCSE from September, and two of the others
were work-based assessors and it was difficult to timetable them because they were often off site.
All would be heavily supported in the classroom with mentoring by an experienced GCSE tutor. DL
said one of the three people who had taken the course would teach it and the other two would
shadow, with a view to teaching it the following year.
2. Maths Enhancement Programme update
SP presented an updated report on the numbers taking the MEP
JR asked what people were going to do after doing the MEP. JO’H said a lot on their PDPs had said
they would like to do higher maths themselves, and MN said some had said they would like to do a
higher maths aimed at teachers. FM wondered if there was a way of following the people who’d
done the course to see what they did, how they progressed and the impact. SP said we could email
them in September. JM said people who had done the course were very keen to attend the Maths
Fest events, and they were keen to do externally-organised events rather than training in house. JC
fed back on the evaluation forms that people talked about the value of talking to people from other
sectors. JR said it changed people’s mindset if they had gained a qualification themselves. SP asked if
it would be worth doing some follow-up research and asking people if they wanted an adult GCSE.
MN said Stoke College was running one for two hours a week over 18 weeks.
3. Maths and the autistic spectrum
Larry Trueman from Hereward College talked about teaching maths to students on the autistic
spectrum. He said autism affected how people communicate and relate to other people. A lot of the
students he taught had Aspergers Syndrome and were of above average intelligence. They had the
least problems with the subject but had problems understanding and processing language, and
relating to other people. Their difficulties were around social communication, social interactivity and
social imagination.
They tended to have a very literal understanding of language and did not understand facial
expressions or often the tone of a person’s voice, and jokes and sarcasm were wasted on them.
Some people had limited speech, and others had good speech and a small area of interest and would
talk about it for a long time.
In classes, autistic students could get upset if there were changes to the plan, and they liked to know
beforehand what was going to happen, and they liked routine and to do the same thing every day. If
something could be done in different ways they wanted to stick to one way and may argue the other
way was wrong.
SP raised the issue of collaborative teaching and different ways of doing things. LT said it caused
tremendous problems as lots of students would not work in a group. The teacher had to be very
definite about what was wanted of the students, or they would not do it, and they would not ask if
something was missing in an exam. There were individual learning plans and very small classes.
JR asked about using computers. LT said they would not ask for help, so learned from watching the
teacher at the board. FM asked about autistic students in non-specialist sectors. DL said it was often
identified in primary school, and ways were found to cope with it. JO’H asked how students coped
with making an error, and LT said it was a huge issue. A lot of Hereward students had been in
mainstream schools before they went to the college.
5. WM ‘Maths Fest’ conferences
Steve Pardoe talked about the Maths Fest days being held at the University of Warwick and
Staffordshire University on July 4 and 8, and said we had wanted to keep the momentum going. The
aims were two-fold, to look at classroom practice and what was happening in terms of government
policy and strategy. He ran through what the workshops were and who was delivering them.
Joan O’Hagan reported on a project she was working on which had got approval from the ETF. It was
aimed at people teaching maths within a vocational context. They had said they needed materials,
and two Starter for Ten days were being held in July which were practical workshops for vocational
tutors to get together and create learning materials suitable for them and their students in these
vocational areas ,which would also stretch them. The days were on 11 and 16 July and the remit was
to produce materials for two vocational areas.
6. Proposals for developing a sustainable West Midlands maths hub
FM said the idea of starting the Mesh was linked to the MEP. He hoped the gatherings would bring
people together to listen and talk and take things on board. He said WMCETT would be keen to
continue with some sort of meeting.
SP said the next challenge that would face the FE sector in terms of maths was Level 3 and there
were shortages of people to teach this. There was no future funding for maths training after the end
of July but we had PD leads whose talents we wanted to use to the advantage of the sector in the
West Midlands to deliver CPD, and providing more consultancy work.
JR said she thought there would be a serious need from training providers in the very near future.
MN said funding for the 16-18 study programme would depend on providing maths and English so it
becomes more important this year.
JM said the changing GCSEs would be more rigorous and would need more support to get people
through, but there were finite staff resources.
FM asked if people wanted to continue to meet. It was agreed to hold another Mesh meeting on 16
October at the University of Warwick, room to be confirmed.