Headteacher's Insights on Collaborating with Mobius

Brett Jouny, Headteacher, Malmsbury School

What prompted your school to participate in the Mastery Specialist programme?

Having started using the White Rose Maths curriculum, which has an emphasis on mastery, we wanted to explore further what mastery was and how it can be implemented, etc. We had a member of the faculty who was keen to explore this and was excited about developing their own understanding of mastery. The Mastery Specialist programme seemed an ideal fit for this and would allow us to bring mastery into our teaching as well as develop our curriculum to make it more accessible for all students.

What advantages have you noticed for your teachers, students and the overall mathematics programme?

I feel we are better equipping our students to cope with the variety of language in the questions and to apply knowledge of one topic to support their understanding of other topics. By highlighting and regularly using key representations, it is helping students visualise the problems better and see connections between different elements of the course.

For teachers, it has helped us become more consistent with our teaching as we are discussing the methods and representations we want students to see, so they will see those from all the teachers. Teachers are also showing students more mastery questions which is helping them to build their own connections. I feel our provision has improved for all students but especially our weaker students, who have benefitted from the use of key representations.

What type of support and collaboration has the Mastery Specialist encouraged within your school and beyond?

Our Mastery Specialist has worked with us all in the department, either as a whole group in meetings or individually. This has allowed us to have some good conversations regarding methods, representations and the use of physical support such as double-sided counters. She has also supported us with our planning of these lessons and supported individuals in developing their questioning to promote mastery.

How has the Mastery approach aligned with or transformed your school’s teaching ethos and practices?

The Mastery approach was something we were moving towards anyway but having a specialist has allowed us to do this quicker and in a more effective way. We have created resources to be used by all teachers, which ensures we have consistency across the department and all students are seeing the mastery-style questions and strategies.

Have you had any challenges and how were these addressed?

In developing the resources, it has been important that strategies are presented in the same way across all lessons, and if resources are made by different people, this is not always the case. Our specialist has overseen the creation of these resources to ensure that there is consistency from one lesson to the next.

Having a specialist has also helped identify opportunities for CPD training from the Mobius Maths Hub, which many members of the faculty have been able to benefit from.