Specialist knowledge for teaching mathematics – Teaching Assistant Programme

This project is designed to support teaching assistants (TAs) in developing specialist knowledge for teaching mathematics, thus enabling them to understand, teach and support pupils in maths in the classroom.

Who can take part?

This programme is designed for teaching assistants who would like to further develop their specialist knowledge for teaching maths and supporting children with their maths learning.

What is involved?

The programme is based on four core primary modules:

• Number sense
• Additive reasoning
• Multiplicative reasoning
• Fractions.

This will be made up of 4 morning sessions over the school year.

What will you learn?

Participants and their schools will:

• enhance their maths subject knowledge with an emphasis on the key structures in each mathematical area covered
• understand the key elements that form number sense, forms of addition and subtraction, forms of multiplication and division, and forms of fractions, including precise language, structures and representations
• review their practice as a result of the sessions and make specific adaptations to impact on pupil outcomes.

What is the cost?

The SKTM Teaching Assistant Programme project is fully funded by the Maths Hubs Programme so is free to participating schools.

Expectations of participants and their schools

Participants and their schools must be able to commit to the full academic year’s programme. This will involve online collaboration.

This is a hugely popular workgroup and back by popular demand for the third year running.

During the programme, participants will be asked to undertake tasks with learners to deepen their thinking about the learning of maths, and to share this with colleagues. It is asked that school leaders support their staff to complete this work.

Teaching Assistants who have attended the workgroup in previous years have shared some feedback;

“From session 1, I have learnt the importance of early experiences of number and how these lay the foundation for future progress.”

“The workgroup has shown me the importance of using correct mathematical language and I feel I better understand how to strip back a concept to find the children’s gaps.”

“Going over each mathematical focus within the workgroup has given me insight to the journey of addition. This means I know feel more confident supporting the child I work with to identify gaps in their learning from previous years.”

Dates: There are two dates for each session, please pick the date for each session that works best for you. You need to attend all of the 4 sessions.

Topic	Date 1	Date 2
Session 1 on Number Sense	Thursday 26th November 2020; 9.15am-12noon	Thursday 10th December 2020; 9.15am-12noon
Session 2 on Additive Reasoning	Tuesday 12th January 2021; 9.15am-12noon	Tuesday 26th January 2021; 9.15am-12noon
Session 3 on Multiplicative Reasoning	Thursday 25th February 2021; 9.15am-12noon	Thursday 11th March 2021; 9.15am-12noon
Session 4 on Fractions	Thursday 25th March 2021; 9.15am-12noon	Thursday 22nd April 2021; 9.15am-12noon