And just like that… it’s September again!

This blog is a short and sweet reminder of how to get your maths subject leadership off to a flying start.

Before I delve into my three September Suggestions, a quick nod to some great guidance from the EEF around implementation; if you haven’t already had the chance, have a read of EEF: A School’s Guide to Implementation.

If you focus on anything in subject leadership over the next few weeks, I suggest communication, summative assessment and making your plan manageable.

When everyone knows…

• what impact their efforts have already had
• why things need maintaining or changing, and
• how this is being planned

… progress is made!

Communicate with colleagues

Over the summer term, there will have been natural opportunities to reflect on the success of your intended curriculum; the progress made against your action plan and the progress learners have made.

Dedication from your team make positive outcomes possible, so share the fruits of their labour to keep things ticking along and building success.

Use data to support what you are saying so colleagues know this isn’t empty words, so for example, the 5 minutes they spent every day tweaking their fluency slides had an impact on children’s learning!

Ensure you share:

• what went well last year
• what they need to keep doing this year
• why this is important.

Make use of summative assessment

No matter what resource you and your school use for summative assessment, make it count!

Summative assessment provides the opportunity for subject leaders to drill further down into how many children met age-related expectations in that assessment or to track scaled scores year on year.

Make the most of the summative assessment by completing a gap analysis of end of summer term data.

What domains did the children succeed in across the school? Why do you think that was?

Are there any strands where children didn’t perform well? Is this a cohort-specific barrier or school-wide trend?

Remember: summative assessment data is a starting point for further enquiry. This information can inform the CPD and training you provide for staff, as well as any adjustments to your intended maths curriculum pathway for classes, groups or individual pupils.

Manageable action planning

When writing our action plans for the year ahead, it is easy to fall into being (dare I say it) too ambitious.

Knowing where to start and how to make it manageable can be overwhelming, which is why the Primary Maths Team have included guidance, examples and templates in the maths subject leader toolkit.

When planning your priorities, consider these three questions:

• What needs maintenance?
• What needs a tweak?
• What needs implementing or changing altogether?

Once this has been mapped out, consider what steps and actions are needed and how and when you are going to monitor how it’s going.

How will you reassure yourself that your actions are having the intended impact?

Get your whole school calendar or diary open and plot the dates or windows for any CPD (whether that’s a staff meeting or a modelled fluency session), monitoring, feedback and reflection. Keep it specific and consider the wider priorities of your school and how your subject fits into these.

Finally, I have linked below some available resources to support you for the year ahead, as well as training you and your staff may find helpful.

Resources

Maths subject leader toolkit

• Suite of documents to support you in your role as maths subject leader
• Exemplification, guidance and templates for action planning and monitoring activities in EYFS, KS1 and KS2

Year 6 maths gap finder: SATS preparation toolkit

• Diagnostic summative assessment papers for early identification of gaps
• Resources to support teaching and rehearsal of arithmetic and reasoning

CPD

Leading primary maths in current times – 2024-25

• Half-termly, online, bite-sized CPD
• First session: 10th October 2024
• Develop and enhance your subject and leadership expertise
• Strategies and resources to use at key points across the year
• All sessions will be recorded and available until July 2025

Reaching the expected standard in Year 6 maths – 2024-25

• Series of four half-day workshops at Killigrew Primary School, St Albans, Herts
• First session: 18th September 2024
• Develop subject knowledge and learn practical teaching strategies
• Use your data to create a personalised plan for your class to secure arithmetical and reasoning skills

Teaching Assistants: Subject knowledge in primary maths webinars – 2024-25

• Six, online, bite-sized CPD sessions
• First session: 18th September 2024
• Develop confidence to effectively support the delivery of the primary maths curriculum
• All sessions will be recorded and available until July 2025

The Test

The test of true culture
Is the ability
To move among men,
East or West,
North of South,
With ease and confidence,
Radiating the pure light
Of a kindly humanity.

Una Marson is a rare find.  Her life and achievements have only recently been unearthed: her pioneering spirit committed to articles, curated collections and even a BBC short film ‘Our Lost Caribbean Voice’.  Her story is fitting for the BHM themes for both last year and the upcoming year - Celebrating Our Sisters and Reclaiming Narratives - because her trailblazing and determination are galvanising.

Una Marson was born in the parish of St Elizabeth Jamaica in 1905.  She would eventually become a journalist, editor, playwright and poet.  But that short biography does not demonstrate the extent of her achievements and talents. Whilst in Jamaica she started and then became Jamaica’s first female editor and publisher of The Cosmopolitan.

You could be forgiven for not having heard of Una Marson or for not being aware that she was the first black female broadcaster on the BBC in 1941.  She featured on George Orwell’s 6-part poetry magazine Voice in 1942, which also featured TS Eliott in the December episode. Cleverly, Marson turned this opportunity into a BBC West Indian Service, Caribbean Voices where she was able to honour works from Sam Selvon, Edward Kamau Braithewaite and Vidia Naipaul. Her achievements have been languishing, somewhat buried in obscurity given her sudden passing aged 60 in 1965.  Or perhaps her limited popularity is a reflection of her personal story which is interspersed with struggles with mental health, periods in mental institutions and a diagnosis of schizophrenia. But, it is in these aspects of her life that her fortitude and spirit lie.

Whilst much of Una’s writing is not easy to access, it is possible to read her poetry. In her lifetime she produced 3 volumes: Tropic Reveries (1930), Heights and Depths (1931) and The Moth and the Star (1937). These pages reveal her experiences as an immigrant to the UK, challenges and desires, determination to fulfil her potential and her willingness to address the cruelty of racism and the narrow gender stereotypes of England and Jamaica.  In her poem ‘The Test’ she expresses a deep want for humanity and a deep need for every person to be able to move through the world unshackled and free.

Una’s story in lots of ways is not dissimilar to many activist immigrants of her era, it is no surprise that she worked alongside Dr Harold Moody or that she brushed shoulders with Paul Robeson.  However, this would belie the struggles she navigated that existed at the time. This is something that Una addresses in her poem Kinky Hair Blues (1937) where she writes about the status quo regarding beauty, a world that doesn’t see her hair as attractive and the tension between standing out and fitting in. In this poem, she makes a choice that we have come to see as very modern; she uses a Jamaican dialect to recreate her voice, its cadence and rhythm.  In choosing to write in her dialect, once again, Una is trailblazing, demonstrating a fearlessness and a resistive and restless spirit.  Una demonstrates she can codeswitch and speak to different audiences, but this also reflects the tension of her existence. When broadcasting on the BBC on West Indies Calling (1944), her use of received pronunciation (RP) was faultless but the internal struggle in Marson showed, ‘There is conflict pressing in on her all the time.’

Selecting Una Marson for this blog was deliberate given that her story - until recently - had not seemed to exist to current generations.  She possessed so much activism and courage.  She was passionate about female equality and liberation.  She took to the stage to give speeches on race and class, was an articulate black female activist, was the first Jamaican woman to edit and publish a magazine and she believed in female employment and financial freedom. Marson espoused views not commonly associated with women like her and usually perceived to be part of a post-war civil rights movement.  In reality, Marson existed as an influential feminist figure prior to the Windrush period which we so often wrongly perceive as the moment of arrival from people of the Caribbean into the UK.

Una Marson’s story – like many others – is complex and she is far from a perfect heroine, but her struggles, bravery meant that her voice was heard. Whilst we may want to avoid both the stories of struggle or the superhero narratives when exploring the lives and contributions of racially minoritised people in the UK, it is important not to ignore the lives of those like Una Marson and the contributions they have made, particularly when their lives began with such uncertainty.

The dust that covered Una Marson’s legacy is slowly being removed.  Her poems and plays, her life, her successes and her role in bringing the experiences of people from the Caribbean to a large audience are all slowly emerging and ready to be unpacked.  Her story is at least in part, a triumphant stand against the limitations that others tried to impose.

Her voice was heard and it will be heard again.

If you would like support on race equity and how to embed anti-racism and inclusive practices in your school/setting/trust, you can find out more.  or contact the Wellbeing team on email: wellbeing@hfleducation.org

Sources

www.bristol.ac.uk/history/public-engagement/blackhistory/snapshots2021/marson/ 
Jarrett-Macauley, The Life of Una Marson 1905 – 65 (Manchester University Press, 2010)