Primary Teaching for Mastery

Mastery Readiness : 

The Mastery Readiness Programme is for primary schools that want to adopt teaching for mastery in maths, but would benefit from a staged approach. It is the first year of a four year programme. Apply here to join the programme.

Mastery Development Work Groups: 

If your school is ready to start developing a teaching for mastery approach, you can join a Work Group starting in the new academic year.

Two teachers from each participating school join a Work Group, consisting of six or seven local primary schools. Each Work Group is led by a trained Primary Mastery Specialist.

Work Groups (sometimes known as Teacher Research Groups, or TRGs) meet regularly to plan, observe and discuss teaching for mastery. In between meetings, teachers explore mastery approaches in their own classrooms and across their school. Work Groups run for a year initially, with many continuing beyond the first year as mastery is embedded in participants’ schools. 

Please click here for more information and to apply.

Embedding Programme:

Work Groups in this project build on Development Work Groups, and involve scaling up teaching for mastery approaches from the lead participants’ classrooms to ensure practices across the whole school are consistently adopted. This involves working with school leaders and classroom practitioners and establishing systems of professional development which support continual improvement and refinement within and across schools.

The Work Group consists of six local primary schools. Each Work Group is led by a trained Primary Mastery Specialist. Embedding Work Groups meet regularly to plan, observe and discuss teaching for mastery. In between meetings, participant teachers are expected to continue to explore mastery approaches in their own classrooms and move towards a consistent, whole school approach, with bespoke support from a Mastery Specialist. These Work Groups run for the duration of the academic year.

Support is provided from a local classroom-based Mastery Specialist who leads the group. The Mastery Specialist also carries out one visit to each of the participating schools and aids development with the use of a bespoke action plan to ensure that the focus of actions is agreed by the school and the specialist. This model of professional development involves hands-on learning and peer-to-peer support. It is evidence-based and designed to support substantial long-term change.

Sustaining Programme:

This project brings together primary schools to sustain their teaching for mastery approach for mathematics. It seeks to establish continuing support for collaborative planning and specialist subject knowledge development in primary schools and leadership within the school. It is for schools who have been involved in either a Development Work Group or an Embedding Work Group.

Primary Mastery Specialists:

Mastery Specialists are classroom practitioners who develop expertise in the mastery approach to teaching maths. Through rigorous and interactive training, they become experts in introducing and embedding mastery. After first developing a mastery approach in their own classrooms, they go on to support colleagues in their own and other schools.

For more information about Teaching for Mastery, please visit the NCETM website.

A school’s journey towards Mastery: