The Maths Hub national website describes the nature of the work that the Maths Hubs support.
The Maths Hubs Network runs a series of nationally co-ordinated professional development projects for anyone involved in the teaching of maths. The emphasis is on collaborative, exploratory, evidence-based professional development and research, continuing through the whole year for substantial professional and systemic change: these are not top-down, one-off courses.
The projects are delivered through locally based Work Groups led by an expert, in which participants contribute to and learn from the national project. Each Maths Hub puts together its own programme of Work Groups to run locally, and many projects have Work Groups in all Maths Hubs, making them available to anyone who wants to join.
Some feedback from schools involved in our work this year is below:
As part of the Work Group it was really beneficial to be able to discuss with staff from other schools how they approach mastery and what they have implemented across school and within their classrooms to assist with this. It was interesting to look at lesson design and to pick out what makes a mastery lesson/approach to teaching. From this, my colleague and I were then able to create a mastery lesson design guidance sheet which was shared with the whole school. I really enjoyed being part of this project and it was really valuable in aiding my professional development.
We are so glad that we decided to join the Mastery Work Group last year. We had already begun to implement mastery style lessons and planning but we did feel very much alone. The Work Group enabled two of us to get out into other schools and see how they were rising to the challenge of implementing changes. It was so refreshing and inspiring to work with the group leader and real teachers who were so positive and full of enthusiasm for the mastery approach but also facing the same problems. We had opportunities to do learning walks and follow up with discussions about achievements and problems. The observations and training gave us the confidence to go back and try more things in our own classrooms. It also enabled us to have informed discussions with staff about how it was working in other schools. This really helped to overcome some reluctance from some teachers to adopt a new approach. I would urge any school to get involved.
Since working with the Maths Hubs we have, as a school, been able to highlight what we are already doing well but most importantly the areas for development. It has been great to be able to discuss these issues with other schools and know we have that continued support. We now have a much clearer picture of what we need to do.