Michelle Tregoning, Leader K–12 Initiatives and Wendy Robb, Teaching Principal (Girilambone Public School), walk us through embedding Mathematics in a small school. Listen to their stories of pedagogy, building teacher capability and engaging students. Catch our ending with the ignition ideas that principals and teachers can reflect on and use tomorrow.

Michelle

The following podcast is brought to you by the school and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation.

Welcome to our podcast, small school, big impact bite-size strategies for leading curriculum. Today I'm joined by Wendy Robb, and our focus in today's session will be on embedding mathematics curriculum in your school.

I'd like to recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and the waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories, and we strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

We are focusing on embedding curriculum that plan for learning, that is underpinned by the syllabus in our schools. I, like many of you always find inspiration stories and ideas from colleagues. We hope that anyone listening gets an opportunity to walk away with an idea or two that you could use or adapt, as well as experiencing some moments of affirmation that you are on the right track.

I get to be your host today, Michelle Tregoning. I'm leader of K to 12 initiatives, which is a really big team that encompasses STEM enrichment, Aboriginal Education, effective teaching practices, professional learning coordination, and also school and system leadership, where this project sits alongside other projects like, support for transitions, middle leaders, higher levels of accreditation and support for small and unique schools. And it's here inside small and unique schools that the idea for a teaching principal podcast was born. Something developed with teaching principals for teaching principals, and for me, who's never been a teaching principal, but every now and again dreams of becoming one.

And today I get to spend some time with an old maths friend and colleague. Not actually old as in to date us, Wendy, but rather to date the length of time that we've gotten to cross paths and learn together. Wendy is currently in the middle of an excursion, which is something our teaching principal colleagues would understand really well. Been or on your way to the Brewarrina fish traps sleeping at Bourke High School, paddle boating along the Darling. But in addition to that, Wendy, what school are you currently working at and where have you been?

Wendy

Thank you, Michelle. Currently I'm working at Girilambone Public School, which is about 45 kilometres northwest of Nyngan in the Central West District of New South Wales.

My background initially started as a mathematics high school teacher. I was fortunate to be the primary math specialist for five small, rural and remote schools, and they were Wanaaring, Louth, Girilambone, Hermidale and Marra Creek. I had a fabulous time because I got to do what I love and it also afforded me the opportunity to venture out to an Wanaaring as relieving teaching principal and I obtained the substantive and spent nearly four years out there before venturing back to Girilambone and closer to family.

Michelle

Thanks, Wendy. That's why we get along well, it's in my heart too. So in talking about mathematics, being at your heart, today's focus is to get some tips from you around things that you are doing at your school. I feel like you have a slight geographic advantage in embedding mathematics simply because you have the lovely little triangle between Nyngan, Jerry and Hermidale, for anyone who wants to go spy that on the map, it's pretty cool. What are some things that you are on the lookout for in the teaching and learning of mathematics, including in your own teaching?

Wendy

I think the lookout is to make it realistic and relevant to the context you're in. There is little impact happening if you cannot connect it to the children's lifestyle and what is every day for them. So it does become a lot of thinking outside the square or opening things up like at the moment with certain aspects of farming life. We are currently in the district stripping wheat perfect different times of the year poses different aspects and direct links to the syllabus.

I think it also has to be in a fun aspect for the children, and depending on what your focus and what your data has given you, I've been fortunate that I can draw on my personal experience. How many right turns did it take you to get to school today? Or how many grids did you happen to go over? Did you cross any rivers?

So your directional positioning is completely in your hands with the children, along with area of crops and volume of water you've gotta order for cotton, and it's just a myriad of discovery, but knowing your context and knowing your students is vital.

Michelle

I think one of the lovely things about that, Wendy, is that that's just so applicable no matter where you are working. So many years ago, I started the school year and my teacher had told me, I have a year six class, so it was a big school in southwest Sydney, and the students had said to me, oh, we're really nervous about, you know, you being our teacher. I had already sort of started playing around with doing some work in mathematics outside of the school, and I'd sort of come with a bit of a reputation to the students and they were really nervous that I was their teacher, that I loved mathematics, that they didn't really understand it and that that wasn't gonna be a great year for them. But one of the things that they we're all really interested in was sport. We had the school photos and for hours on the day that the sport photo was being taken, the children were missing. Not missing they were they were well accounted for. They were out getting their photo for the soccer team, for the cricket team, for the swimming squad, and it made me realise that it was a really good opportunity for me to tap into this environment where they felt really comfortable and use that as the context in which I could then start to stretch them in the mathematics.

And this, it's exactly the same thing that you're doing here. You're looking for where the mathematics is in their day-to-day lived experiences and helping them make the connections and then the relevancy to their learning. Cause what you would understand better than I, with your background as a mathematics teacher Wendy, is that mathematics is like the language of the universe. So it's everywhere. It's just finding those opportunities that are there with you in your context and your space to help drive the students into their learning in mathematics. I wondered if in thinking about embedding curriculum, if you've had any specific changes to your pedagogy over the last couple of years as you've worked as a specialist in primary mathematics and then with the movement into the new syllabus.

Wendy

Definitely a shift in pedagogy. The eyes wide open scenario of just constantly looking at the opportunities, not just in our environment, but through teaching through PL that you go, oh, I can try that tomorrow. I think the biggest shift in my pedagogy is utilising two main aspects. The number sense aspect, where we look at some form of number sense each lesson, short, sharpish. But I have found the attitude towards mathematics shift dramatically through just that. Because when I first started the journey, that was the first thing I looked at with staff consultation was embedding that. We just started small. We only are a small staff, so you don't want to overwhelm, but we went, right. Let's just focus on number sense. Our data was telling us we needed to work in that area and we went, how can we do this without overwhelming the students? So we agreed for a period of time and we found once we had shifted and started the embedding phase, this one seemed to be smooth transition. Staff were confident in doing it. They had the opportunity to play with the students. They were in the maths with the students, and the students could see them and their reaction like, I have played the game place value for on and off of the last three terms. I have yet to win one. Like I would've played this game probably a hundred times and I have yet to win one.

So it's a very big running joke at the moment because I don't often win any of these games. Now, if that means, and I don't deliberately lose, please, but the children are keen to play me because they still wanna keep the students winning streak. And if that enthusiasm towards me losing is helping them learn, I'm okay for that.

When we first started the journey with my staff, the embedding of that was, simple, easy, and we've seen, it wasn't instant results, but we've seen the shift and it's like great. The pedagogical shift that I've done a lot more around is number talks, and I've worked with a variety of staff across schools in regards to it, and we've done some coaching cycles.

I think my expectations at the time after the previous experience of embedding was, yep, this is right. We are going with this and it'll be all good. However, upon reflection and looking at things, I just had to step back as a leader and go, well, yes, I'm keen, I'm knowledgeable. How are my staff? Where do they sit in this space?

And we had to pivot. We engage in coaching cycles, which whilst yes, there is an impact, a student, there is a huge impact to staff and building staff capacity in there. I participate in a coaching cycle and they are looking at my mathematical goals and my pedagogical goals for that session. Providing them that scaffold has helped enormously.

I think the biggest thing was reflecting on the students' attitudes towards maths because . As soon as you say you're a math teacher, oh, didn't like that . And we are shifting that, I know I didn't start it on the journey about year two. Hated maths. Didn't like it. There was a farmer out landmarking their sheep and he said, oh, I've got so many sheep and so many sheep, and how many is that? And she turned around and said to him, pointed the finger saying it apparently, and went, ah-ha, I'm not doing maths. It's not school today. So it was like, hmm. And just to see the growth in a couple of years with her has been enormous.

She's now in year six. Loves it, will ask the harder. Okay, what's the next one? Thrives on that pushing and yes, while it's taken a few years to get there, she's now someone that has, the appreciation for maths and the want and the thirst and the curiosity, and I can't help but think it has something to do with the shift in the pedagogical practices because I don't see any other way that she would've got to the liking of it if we didn't dabble in different things to find that fit.

Michelle

Thanks, Wendy. As I'm listening to you today, I'm writing myself some notes. Some of these things in terms of thinking about embedding curriculum, be it mathematics or other things, they're almost evergreen. We meet people where they are at their point of readiness, whether that's your students or your colleagues.

You create some sort of shared vision. Together, you are willing to adjust and adapt based on feedback from the group of people. We use coaching cycles. We bring the kids into the secret world of teaching with us and share with them the things that we're learning so that we can model what learning looks like for them, and then pay attention to things that are sometimes harder to see, like how people think and feel.

To colleagues across New South Wales. We're calling an ignition idea. What's one thing you think that a teaching principal could use to light up their school tomorrow?

Wendy

Reflecting on this question, which took a bit because I have several ideas, but I think it's just small steps done well, and to pick up the student aspect of it, it has to be around hooking them in.

So I just think small steps done well, both with students and with staff, and with your pedagogy and looking at your curriculum. Then foster sustainability of it and the embedding nature. But with our students, if we're not getting them to like mathematics, we are going to constantly be pulling them along.

And I think sometimes you have to step back to build that and foster that love of mathematics and that opening of the eyes to it's around us and it is our universe and how we can connect with it.

Michelle

I think I'm gonna add a third one. 'cause you know you live in a beautiful area, which is about the magic triangle, Wendy.

For me, one of the biggest shifts had such enormous impact for my students was when I learned about this idea of the magic triangle. Whenever we're teaching kids about a new concept or skill in mathematics of really strong connections between what the actual thing is, so what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like, ensuring that that magic triangle was in place, what a big difference that made in teaching.

Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences.

We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.

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