I am a massive advocate of collaboration and schools working together … more specifically maths departments working together. However, I know that the opportunity to do this is, sadly, variable across the country – for some of you there will be lots of local opportunities that you take advantage of, for others there may be a massive void because of the demise of local authority support and for others (probably more than most of us think!) this void may have gone unnoticed because you’ve never experienced it in the first place!

Wherever you are on the above spectrum I may have an idea that could be of interest to you from September … if you are in the Birmingham or surrounding areas! The school where I’ve been working in my day job this year is looking to hold termly (free!) “maths meetings” … We have a fabulous venue for it and the idea is that it will provide department leads AND teachers alike, the opportunity to get together and share ideas with a view to creating our own little Birmingham maths “posse”. I genuinely want this to be something that has its roots in the classroom with a focus on teaching & learning so may have a topic related focus for each meeting but I also want it to be about upskilling maths teachers in terms of the wider requirements of our national assessment system. It all depends on what the group agrees at the first meeting … I’ll be quite democratic about it!

In terms of the logistics – at the minute my gut reaction is that we’ll hold them on a Wednesday between 4 and 5:30 with coffee etc from 3:30 and the inaugural meeting date is still to be confirmed depending on whether we get enough interest …. so this is a shout out … if you think this is a good idea and would like to get involved email me on my work email: – mmuldowney@colmers.school

Similarly if you’re a company interested in sponsoring the cost of tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes email me too!

SPREAD THE WORD!!