University welcomes Shanghai maths teachers

On Monday and Tuesday (March 9 and 10), teachers Mrs Julia Gao and Miss Sunny Sun will be meeting university staff, students and children from Gardner’s Lane School in Cheltenham as part of a national project. They will give lessons as they do in Shanghai at the University’s Francis Close Hall campus, demonstrating the techniques which have led to children performing in maths at a world-leading level.

The Shanghai teachers, who are based at Glenfall Primary School working across the school there, will deliver a lesson to the visiting children at the Francis Close Hall campus as they would at home and BEd Primary students will have a unique opportunity to observe this first hand and discuss their strategies with the visitors afterwards.

The teachers are from a group of 30 involved in an exchange programme, who have come to the UK as part of Maths Hub initiative, funded by the Department for Education (DfE), and co-ordinated by the National Centre of Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM). The University Primary Maths Team is proud to be a strategic partner in the GLOW (Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire) Maths Hub, one of 34 across the country.

Jackie McNeil, Senior Lecturer in Education, said: “We are delighted to be hosting the teachers and are really looking forward to them sharing their vision of ‘mastery’ in mathematics, where approaches include whole class teaching, meticulous planning and the use of lots of visual representations to ensure sound conceptual understanding.”

The visits are part of a two year project, focusing on developing a better understanding of the principles of maths teaching in Shanghai.