Conference Agenda

England’s move to a marketised, new public management schooling model has impacted heavily on primary schools (DfE, 2010).  The ongoing changes have created a fragmented and constantly shifting school system which even a decade ago was described by Stephen Ball as “messy, patchy and diverse” (Ball, 2012). Over one third of schools have moved from local government oversight under a policy of ‘academisation’, although numbers vary between regions.  

The academisation policy (HMSO, 2010) has also altered arrangements for teacher Continuing Professional Development and Learning (CPDL). Some of the previous mechanisms for accessing CPDL provision having been lost, adapted or replaced (Greany, 2020). Subject leaders in England’s primary schools have oversight of curriculum, pedagogy and attainment, as well as subject CPDL, meaning changes to CPDL provision have impacted their work in ensuring access to high quality CPDL provision for colleagues. This paper reports on findings from a Wellcome-funded project exploring local learning landscapes for CPDL (Greany et al., 2023), focusing on the case of mathematics in primary schools, and particularly on the challenges facing mathematics subject leaders. 

CPDL for primary mathematics is almost unrecognisable from that of twenty years ago (ACME, 2016). Previously Local Authorities (LAs) were the key CPDL coordinators and providers for mathematics, often mediating national programmes at local level (e.g. National Numeracy Strategy, DfEE, 1999). The previous LA role has been replaced by a patchwork of regional Maths Hubs that implement national development priorities and have much larger footprints. In addition, the creation of legally-constituted groups of school academies (Multi-Academy Trusts or MATs) has enabled schools to pool resources, share expertise, create CPDL programmes, and appoint Trust subject leaders. MATs can use their collective buying power to secure preferred providers of CPDL (Greany & Higham, 2018) and might mandate particular schemes/textbooks. Where education businesses and in-house CPDL once supplemented the core LA offer, these have increased significantly as part of a self-improving, school-led system.   

The fragmentation and diversification of the CPDL nexus has created a professional learning landscape that is complex to access, understand and navigate. With growing numbers of increasingly strong MATs, weakened LAs, national patchworks of curriculum hubs, expanding edu-business and the continued option for in-house CPDL, mathematics leaders in primary schools no longer have access to the entire CPDL offer in their locality. They are often isolated (if not part of a MAT) and there is no longer any well-established map of that local CPDL offer. 

Drawing on interview data from 19 primary schools in three localities in England, we demonstrate how the role of the mathematics lead has fundamentally changed and is now significantly more variable between schools. These key staff are typically responsible for orchestrating much of the CPDL in their schools, yet the evidence points to widely differing levels of autonomy and training. Support for subject leaders is patchy; some are accessing professional networks of mathematics leaders, but many are not. Given the ongoing prioritisation of improvements in mathematics teaching and impact of CPDL on pupil attainment (Cordingley et al., 2015), greater support is needed for these mathematics leads. This should include consistent access to leader networks, knowledge exchange and sources of innovation. Evidence suggests that establishing more aligned, simplified, coordinated and collaborative local CPDL offers would increase coherence (Burns & Koster, 2016), reducing the workload burden on mathematics leads to provide so much of the CPDL themselves. It would also enable greater balance within a system where the knowledge of the subject leader is in danger of becoming a single point of failure for schools. This would in turn increase the quality and equity of mathematics CPDL across England’s primary schools. 

International concern has long focussed on the lack of girls and women engaged in STEM, including mathematics. Yet, it is predominantly women who provide academic support when their children are engaged in mathematics in the home in the form of homework. One reason for the prevailing gender disparity in mathematics participation more widely (a disparity not evident in outcomes or achievement levels) is the gendered nature of the discipline itself (Mendick 2005). The idea of mathematics as a masculine discipline is well established, with Bench et al. (2015, p.537) highlighting how STEM disciplines, including mathematics, have a “set of masculinized norms and expectations that limit approaches to scientific inquiry”. It is these norms and expectations that create an discursive environment in which those who do not either see their gender reflected or who perceive risk in engaging in particular gendered performances may not feel comfortable and/or valued within the discipline area. Mendick (2005) cautions that this does not mean the academic challenges of mathematics are different for girls, but instead highlights the differences regarding the social expectations and experiences they function within. While people who inhabit feminine subjectivities can, unsurprisingly, engage in masculine performances, they do so under different social expectations than boys and men and hence such activities (i.e. a masculine dominated subject like mathematics) can be less appealing to girls/women (Cheryan et al., 2009; Mendick 2005) or imbued with risk. For example, Mendick (2003) describes boys as engaging in masculine performances when they choose to study mathematics as a means of proving their intelligence. Yet, girls who also engage in masculine performances in relation to mathematics do so with a degree of risk to their feminine identities in the process. Simply put, masculine dominated environments – in terms of stereotypes, social norms and expectations – create an additional barrier for women and girls as they may struggle to identify themselves as being ‘good at mathematics’.

In terms of how feminine subjectivities play a role outside of the mathematics classroom, we are interested in how female caregivers negotiate mathematics, as a masculine-coded discipline, when it comes to supporting their school-aged children with their homework. Schools often rely on the assumption that caregivers “have time to dedicate to their children’s education, contributing to the functioning of the school in ways that are seldom recognized as work” (Griffith & Smith, 2005, 24). The reality of this is that schools rely on mothers to bridge the gap between school and home life, as it is well established that it is mothers who assume the greatest responsibility in children’s education at school and at home (Griffith & Smith, 2005; Lareau, 2000; Reay, 1998; 2004, Vincent, 2017). As a result, mothers place responsibility on themselves for children’s educational performance as well as being held responsible for this by others (Griffith & Smith, 2005; Lightfoot, 2004; Reay, 1998).

Mathematics homework, although taking place in the home, is a practice of school mathematics and as such is shaped by the structures and norms of both the practices and relationships relevant to the classroom context (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008). Therefore, the masculine characteristics of mathematics are identified as present within school mathematics contexts. In this paper we share the experiences of mothers with mathematics homework and discuss how their view of themselves as caregivers shapes the ways in which they engage with mathematics as a mothering (feminine) activity rather than mathematical (masculine) one.

This paper presents results from a part project on early assessment in mathematics, from a special educational perspective: Sustainable national assessment in mathematics - equity and quality in focus now and in the future. The focus is implementation of support for assessment in preschool-class and the teachers experience of this. Earlier results in this project indicates that some of the concepts used in the governing documents are not in harmony with the teaching culture in the early school years and that there is a risk of narrowing down the curricula and of “schoolification” (Bagger, Vennberg & Björklund, 2019). Bagger & Vennberg, 2019; Bagger & Vennberg, 2021). Policy work argues for early identification and support by a need to raise goal achievement, quality of teaching and to secure teachers assessment practices and support for learning so that it is distributed more equal (Regeringen, 2017). Hence, early detection and well-designed teaching for students is a target (Swedish Government, 2017). Research supports this as, early interventions and identification of students in need of support has been proven to make a difference (see eg Dweck, 2015; Holmes & Dowker, 2013; Cohen Kadosh et al., 2013; Kallberg, 2018; Mononen et al., 2014; Sterner, 2015; Vennberg, 2020).

Mandatory support for assessment in mathematics has been implemented in preschool-class, (six-year-olds) since 2020 and with a tryout 2019. Preschool-class is a first school year situated in both the curricula of the preschool and of the compulsory school, it is mandatory and has a curriculum of its own. These students, and often their teachers, had not before this first year of tryout experienced assessment in this form and the teaching culture is imprinted by both care and learning. Furthermore, the group of students starting preschool-class have very varied prerequisites. Some of the students might never even have been to preschool before their year in preschool-class. For all the children, this is a first experience of going to school and part of learning how to be a student. The purpose of the assessment material in preschool-class, called Find the Mathematics, is to impact the teachers' understanding, teaching, and the students' learning and consists of several parts. The intention is that the assessment will lead to early and systematic teaching in mathematics, which also has been proven to be positive for students' development of knowledge and positive identities in mathematics. It is supposed to be carried trough as a group exercise, in which students talk with each other and answers questions, are active and show their thinking in mathematics.

Assessment has had a way of taking over in classrooms, and sometimes learning is rather for assessment, than the opposite. Following from this, an expected challenge when implementing the material is to keep the care discourse that is an important part of teaching in preschool-class and at the same time provide high quality teaching. Watson (2021) has explored care of, for, and through mathematics teaching and then refers to “…care for mathematics in its fullest sense; care for students including knowledge of community; and these two are connected by care for their learning of mathematics’ (p. 91). Watson then shows that care for students learning mathematics, and the care for mathematics is interdependent. Without caring about mathematics and at the same time meeting high expectations and to be challenged, it is not possible to reach deep learning. The purpose of this paper is to explore opportunities and obstacles for the care of mathematics learning, in teachers experiences from preparing and working with the material, Find the Mathematics.