About Maths Hubs

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What is a Maths Hub?

The Maths Hub programme was established in 20 to bring together mathematics education professionals in a collaborative national network to develop and spread excellent practice for the benefit of all pupils and students. Each Hub is a partnership, led locally by an outstanding school or college. The lead school identifies and works with strategic partners, who help plan and evaluate the Hub’s work, and operational partners, who deliver the Maths Hub projects. So the Hub is not just the lead school or college; it is more like a maths leadership network involving schools, colleges and other organisations with maths education expertise from across the Hub’s area.

The programme is funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and coordinated by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM). Find out more about Maths Hubs at: www.ncetm.org.uk/maths-hubs.

London Central & NW Maths Hub Area

Maths Hub at St Marylebone

London Central and North West Maths Hub, led by The St Marylebone CE School, works in partnership with neighbouring schools, colleges, universities, CPD providers, maths experts and employers across the hub area to support the continuous improvement of mathematics education for all pupils and students. By bringing together maths education professionals from Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Islington and Westminster we have created a strong network of teachers and schools to support and improve the teaching and learning of maths.

If you teach, or are in any way involved in maths education, in the area served by London Central and NW Maths Hub, then you are already part of our hub. This includes teachers in all phases from Early Years to post-16, teaching assistants, senior leaders, and anyone else involved in the maths education of young people. All these people teaching in state-funded schools can access support from their Maths Hub.

You don’t need to do anything in order to join the hub, but if you would like to get involved in our work then please get in touch with us. We offer a wide variety of events and professional development opportunities, as well as providing updates on our work via social media and email.

What our participants say

Participant in the Primary Teaching for Mastery Development Work Group

Testimonial 1

We embarked on this project, to broaden and develop the quality of teaching and learning within mathematics. Our aims:

To increase the children’s retention of mathematical concepts

Improve the structure/ planning of our lessons

To gain professional development by watching an NCETM specialist, furthermore, to share that world-class practice with our own colleagues

To network with other boroughs and create links with other schools

We have been proactive in working with our colleagues to develop the teaching and learning of mathematics in our school. Staff CPD has centred around reducing the Cognitive Load for our students following the idea of ‘Keep up don’t catch up,’ a concept that is making waves through education and was a focus within our workgroup. We also wanted our staff to consider breaking down or ‘atomising’ the learning into purposeful steps and therefore a deeper retention of knowledge and skills (go slow now to go faster later). Outcomes from the workgroup:

Two sessions in school, with the Teaching for Mastery specialist, working with Year 1 and 2 to incorporate ‘S’ planning in order to structure learning to build on the previous lessons

Up to date pedagogy about the developments in mathematics

Access to a shared drive to liaise and share examples of good practice with other schools

Teachers that are more confident to teach maths as they start with the foundations of knowledge and deepen the knowledge with purposeful reasoning

Future aspirations:

To work with the whole school using ‘S’ planning and NCETM teaching for mastery template to drive the provision of maths forward. Atomising the learning and adapting the pedagogy accordingly

Continue to develop Year 1 and 2 lesson design focusing on purposeful worksheets that progressively deepen learning

Use our school’s Maths Progression Map to ensure children are developing core maths skills from Rec to Year 6 with an understanding of how this supports the ‘go slow now to go fastlater’ approach

Focus on using variation within lessons to deepen learning and ensure children are equipped with the necessary skills to transfer and apply knowledge to different contexts

Participant in the Primary Teaching for Mastery Sustaining Work Group

Testimonial 2

We have been working alongside the London Central & North West Maths hub for several years now, this includes during the pandemic. As of September 2021, we have been working within our ‘sustaining’ year. This follows our emerging and embedding years within the programme. We have been part of several different working parties, which have widened our sphere of influence and afforded us the opportunity to work collaboratively with a number of different primary schools within the North London region. During the time working with the hub, we have seen the implementation and impact of Teaching for Mastery go from strength to strength. Following end of year evaluation, it has been apparent that the confidence levels around the school as well as the effectiveness of the teaching of maths has grown year on year. This certainly feels like a sustaining year, where we are sustaining the quality-first teaching of mathematics and using the Teaching for Mastery approach to underpin everything we do within the subject.

Participant in the Secondary Teaching for Mastery Embedding Work Group

Testimonial 3

Being a part of the Teaching for Mastery Embedding Work Group has allowed me to collaborate with maths teachers from across London. It has improved my planning greatly and made me think carefully about misconceptions as I create questions for the class. Having the opportunity to observe a showcase lesson by a Shanghai maths teacher and then ask them questions about pedagogy and lesson design was really useful. What I have learned has helped shape our KS3/4 maths curriculum in school, which is being re-planned using Teaching for Mastery principles. It has also helped me break down difficult GCSE problem solving questions by understanding how to combine different aspects of maths.