Busy, busy, busy … waiting, waiting, waiting … so much I want to blog about but so little time!

If you haven’t noticed, this month saw a visit by a load of UK Maths teachers to Shanghai as part of the “UK-Shanghai Maths Exchange” (does what it says on the tin basically!).

I’ll cut to the chase …. one of the team has written the below after I’d badgered persuaded her to write a guest post, which makes for interesting reading – her visit has obviously had a positive effect. As an aside I’m hopefully off to see some Chinese teachers for myself in November (see!! I do have an open mind!) and at the end of the month, albeit only for 2 days … I’m off to China! (seemed a shame not to make a visit whilst I’m in that neck of the woods delivering some training in Hong Kong .. I know I’m v.v.v.v.v lucky! ). Now the cynical amongst you will wonder “how” open my mind actually is? Well … maybe you’ll see or not see my open-mindedness won’t you?  To be (brutally) honest I don’t know how open-minded I’ll “actually” be when it comes down to it, but the fact that I’m putting myself out there and looking must get me some brownie points!  I still “don’t get it” but then again I don’t get lots of things that are going on in education right now – maybe it’s just me being little bit slow (as usual!).

Anyway, I digress so I present to you, the following post from Deb Friis (she can be found on twitter as @runningstitch )

On 6^th September 2015 68 UK Maths teachers from all around the country travelled to Shanghai to visit Secondary and Primary schools and find out why they have ranked so highly in the PISA tables. Yes, we all travelled with preconceptions, most of us had seen Chinese School on the BBC just a few weeks earlier, and even if we did acknowledge that it was a TV show with an agenda then the Chinese Way still didn’t really come across well – despite the results. However after lectures at Shanghai Normal University, when we actually turned up in a school, all our presumptions were blown out of the window.

Firstly, there was the warmth of our hosts. We were met by the school Principle, showered with gifts, and photographed and filmed to distraction (look out for “UK-Shanghai Maths Exchange: The Movie – soon to come on Shanghai School TV). They are desperate to learn from us and striving to improve was a continuing theme. Then there were the lessons. It is usual in Shanghai for a number of teachers to observe other lessons – they put a row of stools at the back of the room, and everyone comes in with their standard-issue observation notebook. Many schools have a dedicated classroom for this, set up in an amphitheatre, with extensive filming capabilities. And these lessons were really, really good. Yes the behaviour was pretty good. Yes the kids were engaged. But the aspect that really stood out was the structure and planning that had gone into the lessons, and the small steps made but deep understanding gained by the students.

Each lesson concentrated on far less that mine would have done back in the UK. The very first lesson I observed brought it home to me: multiplying indices. Just multiplying. Not dividing as well, and no negative powers, and no coefficients, just multiplying. But the depth the students went into was greater than I would have previously done at A-level: they finished with (a-b)^2*(b-a)^3. And through lots of questioning, lots of time spent on examples, and a refusal to accept any student just giving the answer without a full and detailed explanation, pretty much all of these Year 8 equivalent students had got it by the end. They then have carefully (and centrally) constructed homework to do to check understanding. This is due for the next day, and the teacher can go and pick up any student who is obviously struggling. But it was the small steps taken and the depth of questioning that really blew me away.

Over the next 5 days in schools we saw a number of different lessons on various topics from multiplying decimals to geometric proof. And the structure was always the same – and in fact it is across Shanghai, where a great deal of time has been spent designing the textbooks which form the basis of most of the lessons. Small steps covering one Key Concept per lesson. Deep questions and variation: always look at the cases of 0 and 1; use algebra; use an expression. And it really made us think. We are covering too much at once, no wonder kids get left behind. We are not asking those tricky questions, no wonder we have students who cope fine at GCSE but bomb at AS as they have little deep understanding. Students are always being asked to explain why, comment on each other’s work, and it is as important to understand why something doesn’t work as why it does.

Yes there are many aspects of schooling in Shanghai which are a world away from the UK – the attitude towards education and the teaching profession for a start, and the students do far more homework (something which is currently a cause for concern for the people in charge). They have a centrally designed curriculum and teachers have an awful lot more planning, preparation and feedback time than we do. We have to (unfortunately) accept that there are many things about our education system which are impossible to change, and many others which we would like to but are just not going to happen. And of course there is great teaching going on already in the UK all over the place. But that did not stop there being a huge amount that we could learn and use from our experience in Shanghai, and we have all been incredibly inspired by our time here. These schools are fun and stimulating places to be and the lessons are by no means dry and boring or traditional “chalk and talk”. Teacher Research Groups and joint planning teams ensure that every detail of each lesson has been thought of. Despite covering only one key concept, the small steps taken mean that each lessons is pacey, with expert questioning and often various games and activities, and most importantly the students have a really good understanding by the end and pretty much no one is left behind.

Now we are on our way back to the UK we have a lot to do. There are many little tips, and also quite major overarching concepts, that I can and will use in my own teaching. And how to disseminate all of this to my school? And other local schools? How can we get across the positivity we feel that, in spite of the huge cultural differences between our two places (remember… Shanghai is not a country…), we can learn from them and improve our students’ understanding of maths?

At each school I went to we had welcome speeches from the Principle which, despite being in Mandarin, always included the recognisable letters “BBC”, at which point we all groaned. They had all seen “Chinese School” and were all concerned about our reaction to it. And having now had first-hand experience of some Chinese Schools I can unequivocally say that the BBC got it wrong. Being at school in Shanghai, at least, is not like their portrayal in any way. And I hope that we will be able to take the best bits of Shanghai Maths teaching, and continue to learn from the teachers’ return visit to the UK in November, without this media spectre of Chinese School hanging over us. And I hope that the teachers who were not lucky enough to go will open their minds and abandon their preconceptions and give us a chance to tell them about the great things that we have seen.

68 Shanghai maths teachers will be visiting the UK in November and teaching Shanghai-style maths lessons in secondary schools around the country. There will be numerous CPD events attached to this, and the chance to go and see for yourself what Shanghai Maths is all about. Please do try to go along and see for yourself. There will also be a Shanghai session at next week’s MathsConf5 in Sheffield.