Secondary Maths Specialist provides update on visit to Shanghai
Secondary Mastery Specialist Chloe Scott gives her latest account of her visit to Shanghai.
In March, the Shanghai teachers pay a return visit and come to Holmfith.
I tried to head to Shanghai with an open mind. I had heard stories from other Mastery Specialists about what they had experienced, and between the waves of excitement and trepidation, I was looking forward to an incredible professional development experience.
Our first meeting with our host teachers was at the Shanghai Normal University. Our small team consisted of Alex Davidson from Yorkshire Ridings Hub, Nick Bunney from South Yorkshire and me. We were warmly greeted by Ray and Gu; who will be coming to join us in March. It was lovely to finally put faces to names, ask all those last-minute questions and get an idea what our two weeks was going to look like. When Gu picked us up for work the next morning, we were all raring to go!
I think before going to Shanghai I had a preconceived idea that the schools would be very formal, that behaviour would be impeccable and that lessons would be fast paced and a bit ‘chalk and talk’. I expected to see the 5 big ideas we talk about explicitly laid out for us to see. But after our first morning with Gu in the Pudong Province I soon discovered that it may not all be as I expected.
The students and teachers were truly happy to be at school; pupils darted along corridors with arms full of homework books to deliver to teachers, still managing to greet and salute us as they ran by. Parent volunteers worked in the vibrant library, and every term these parents would deliver their own lectures to the students, on anything from careers to mindfulness. A butterfly garden was hidden away in centre courtyard and outside there was a huge outdoor play gym alongside the climbing wall, all decorated in the winning team’s colours from the previous year’s challenges.
In the classroom it was very apparent that some aspects of the Big 5 Ideas were going to be more evident than others. At secondary we didn’t see a whole lot of representation. In Shanghai they believe that everybody should have access to equal education, which means that every school follows the same Scheme of Learning at the same time. During our time over there we saw predominantly algebra. As a result, we saw much more generalisation and mathematical thinking. The recycling of previously covered content was carefully incorporated in expertly constructed examples and questions for the students to work through. The cohesion through the series of lessons was masterful. I have been working on delivered small learning points through my own planning back at home but seeing the design of the lessons in Shanghai really opened my eyes. The variation provided for the students meant that the pace and progress really was quite spectacular.
When we joined Ray in the second week, we had the opportunity to deliver our own lesson to one of his classes. We had to teach combining ratio, writing A:B, B:C as A:B:C. The learning point was so explicit and so focused that at first, we were unsure how we could stretch this for a whole lesson and get the depth of learning and required challenge included. After planning our lesson, we had to present it to the whole maths department, explaining why we chose each example, why we sequenced the lesson the way we did and what key questions would we be using throughout. This is how their department CPD time is used. We received feedback from our new colleagues before we had to deliver the lesson. This wasn’t how every school worked – in fact it seemed to be one of few that promoted the discussion BEFORE the lesson as opposed to a TRG style discussion after – however it was by far the most valuable experience of the 2 weeks and one that I am aiming to embed in our department back at Holmfirth.
As well as working in 2 Middle schools, we also experienced 2 days in Primary schools. Here we did see much more representation. The use of language is so well constructed and precise that the RQT we observed had managed to write out, word for word, the exact reasoning that he teased out of his class, ready to stick up for them. The class were using paper shapes to prove the properties of a trapezium and their young teacher was as excited by the lesson as the class were. He was teaching in a ‘Showcase’ room; so prepared are the schools to observe, critique and discuss each other’s lessons. Professional Development never stops -as one teacher said to us ‘we never stop learning how to teach better, we support an NQT and RQT for their career because we always support each other’.
It would be fair to say that my time in Shanghai really opened my eyes to how collaborative planning can really work. My biggest take away has been how cohesion and variation can be used to really push for better understanding and rapid progress, and we are working on how we can do this more as a team. I am truly excited to welcome Ray and Gu to Yorkshire in March and share what we have learned to colleagues across the country.
If you would like to experience Shanghai teaching first hand as part of our exciting Open Classroom event, please click on the button below: