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Specialist Knowledge for Teaching Maths - Primary Teaching Assistants

This programme is designed to support teaching assistants (TAs) in developing specialist knowledge for teaching mathematics, thus enabling them to understand, teach and support pupils in maths in the classroom.

 

What's involved?

The programme will focus on the following mathematical areas:

  • What is effective in the learning and teaching of mathematics?
  • Number sense (part 1)
  • Number sense (part 2)
  • Additive reasoning
  • Multiplicative reasoning
  • Fractions.

 

What are the benefits?

Participants will:

  • review their practice as a result of the sessions and make specific adaptations to support the pupils they are working with
  • understand the key elements that form number sense, forms of addition and subtraction, forms of multiplication and division, and forms of fractions, including precise language, structures and representations.

 

What are the expectations?

Participants and their schools must be able to commit to the full academic year’s programme. Alongside attendance to the sessions, participants will be asked to carry out follow up tasks back in their schools to enable practice transfer to the classroom. 

 

Who can apply?

This programme is designed for primary teaching assistants who are supporting maths, and who would like to develop their specialist knowledge for teaching maths. It will be particularly relevant for new TAs or TAs that have not received maths-specific training.

 

What is the cost?

The SKTM – Teaching Assistant programme is fully funded by the Maths Hubs Programme so is free to participating schools.

 

When and where?

For 2023/24 we will be running two online Cohorts for this programme, one is starting in the Autumn Term and one is starting in the Spring Term. Although applications are now closed for our Autumn Term start, you are able to apply for the Spring Term Start. 

All sessions will be online and will run from 9.15am-11:45am

Mentor

For the first time, all schools will need to identify a mentor for each of the TAs taking part in this SKTM programme. We know that TAs have better outcomes when they are well supported in school, and so the person nominated as mentor should be someone with whom the TA can have a conversation in between sessions. We respectfully suggest that a line manager, the maths subject leader or the class teacher they work most closely with (and who teaches the TA’s focus pupil) would be good candidates for the role.

After each session, the mentor will receive an email outlining the session content, and the in-school task that the TA is being asked to complete before the next session. There will also be suggestions of things they might ask the TA about (for example, a particular bit of mathematics, or to discuss the progress of their focus pupil).

We really don’t think the mentor role is in any way onerous, and could make a big difference to the professional learning of the TA. Many thanks for supporting us with this.

 

Interested?

We are no longer accepting applications for this programme, however if you would like to express an interest in our 2024/25 Work Group, please complete our expression of interest form linked below

Early Years and Primary 2024/25 Expression of interest form