A WITNEY primary school is aiming to become a leader in a 'pioneering' approach to maths lessons after two Chinese teachers shared their expertise.

Witney Community Primary School hosted Shanghai Showcase on Thursday, where teachers from the Chinese city led sessions in 'maths mastery'.

The concept of maths mastery involves pupils gaining a deeper understanding of the subject than existing learning methods, building solid foundations for more advanced learning.

This brought about 130 teachers from across the south east to Witney, many of whom are seeking to introduce mastery approaches to maths in their schools.

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Shanghai Showcase followed an exchange that saw 86 UK teachers travel to the Chinese city at the end of last year.

Among those was Sam Hudson-Shaw, year four teacher and assistant head at the Witney school, who explained the merits of the method.

She said: "There's the belief that everyone can achieve, even if it takes a bit longer.

"You take small steps, using carefully crafted lessons that think about the needs of the class.

"For example, normally you would teach area at the same time as perimeter, but instead we're getting students to understand one before moving onto the other."

The assistant head, from Carterton, is a leading figure in the 'GLOW' maths mastery hub, where she spends one day each week.

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In her absence, year four is taught by joint teacher Lindsay Croston, who, along with year two teacher Charlotte Stringfellow, was instrumental in setting up last week's event.

It was the culmination of the Chinese teachers' visit, which began on Tuesday, January 15.

For just over a week, two lessons a day were taught by the Shanghai teachers and observed by visitors from across Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire.

Ms Hudson Shaw first became interested in the concept while studying for a masters and joined the GLOW hub a couple of years ago.

The method takes a 'can do' attitude to maths teaching, with pupils taught as one class, rather than divided into groups based on ability.

Witney Gazette:

Learning is broken down into small steps and linked to real life scenarios to help boost understanding.

This contrasts with existing methods of teaching maths, which Ms Hudson Shaw believes 'throws pupils' when they take exams.

It was successfully trialled on year six pupils at Witney Community Primary School last year, with Ms Hudson Shaw revealing every single pupil achieved their age-related expectations.

These results were one of the reasons why so many teachers came to West Oxfordshire last week, while some pupils revealed they too enjoyed the new approach to maths.

Calib Price, a year four pupil, said: "I like how the Shanghai teachers linked real life to Maths."

Bella Holtom, also in year four, added: "I like that the teachers bought new tools into the lessons every day.

"One day they bought stretchy squares and another they bought square paper to help us find the area of a shape."

Witney Gazette:

This was the fifth year teachers from English schools spent time in Shanghai within the Maths Hubs programme, which is principally sponsored by the Department for Education.

The exchange is part of the broader, four-year £41m Teaching for Mastery Programme delivered by the government department.