(or setting the scene for Part 2)

Let me say at the outset that I genuinely hope that the Maths Hubs initiative works. I hope it works because I believe that since the loss of the support from local authorities in lots of areas we have been left with a massive gap (even if you never used the support of local subject specialists you knew it was there should you need it … a sort of “comfort blanket”). I hope it works because there are some people involved that have a genuine desire to help others. I hope it works not because I think there is a cure-all that we can learn from other countries yes, we can learn some stuff but we have the skills and expertise on this very land we live on. I hope it works because maths education is going through some massive changes and people are looking for support. I hope it works so that we can improve the outcomes for generations of students to come. I hope it works because there is a sh!t load of public money being spent and accountability of this spending needs to be clear and measurable.

That doesn’t mean I hope it works to provide evidence of collaboration that can be used by politicians to support whatever hair brained idea that they want to include in some nonsense policy (standard lesson plans etc that rob me of my professionalism is just one such example I can think of, from the top of my head!) that they think will win them votes. Now it is becoming generally accepted that lots of the ideas around how students learn that were shoved down our throats 10 years ago (and still being done in some parts of the country!) are complete tosh, I have a fear that they will become replaced by some similar nonsense not rooted in quality research but developed as a result of a bias towards producing results that support someone’s point of view. We have much to learn in the field of educational research and that should include keeping it away from politicians.

The concept of a national network of centres of excellence is sound. I’ve blogged about how underwhelmed I was by the whole thing last year when the network was announced-> MY PREVIOUS POST . What doesn’t help build credibility is having one hub that could never in a month of Sundays have met the criteria that was set- basically it was a NEW school and so had no record of achievement/attainment – some have tried the argument that a maths hub is more than just one school (in this case, its two and so I assumed that its partner school was outstanding – it wasn’t’!) but someone has emailed me questioning how you can have qualifying criteria and then ignore them.

But that aside (no seriously it’s a red herring!) …

It’s been 12 months since applications to become a hub were invited. Most hubs were aware of their successful application in the first part of the Summer term and the project was “live”, so to speak from September. Recently a new website has been launched bringing together all the activities with a much more coordinated look and feel – check it out: MATHS HUBS

According to the site the work of the Maths Hubs falls into two broad categories:

  • National Collaborative Projects, where all hubs work in a common way to address a programme priority area

  • Local projects, where hubs work independently on locally tailored projects to address the programme priorities.

They are also working on what they call “engagement events” – which are a variety of local engagement events, to explain their work and recruit participants in projects.

For now I’ll leave it at that … check out the site and see if you can get involved and later this week I’ll add more detail and will include some comments/reflections from others about the work so far (I promise!)

It is after all half term … enjoy!