Is it rather like Marmite – you either love it or hate it? Or is it more akin to Chinese whispers (no pun intended), opinions based on partial information or misconceptions?
Why is England looking towards Shanghai for support in raising attainment in Maths? Data, of course! Oh my! Wasn’t it Churchhill who declared that statistics are rather like a drunk with a lampost: used more for support than illumination?
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test ‘aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students’, (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/) and collects data every three years from in excess of 70 countries. The data has consistently placed Shanghai close to the top of the table for Maths attainment.
This has led to the claim that Shanghai’s ‘mastery curriculum’ is the most successful in the world and should therefore be adopted by England. The Maths Hubs (‘a new way of harnessing all maths leadership and expertise within an area, to develop and spread excellent practice, for the benefit of all pupils and students’, according to their website; http://www.mathshubs.org.uk/ ) have therefore been busy spending lots of government grant money shipping two primary maths teachers from each hub off to observe Shanghai Maths lessons, with a reciprocal visit from the Shanghai teachers to English schools. A report, from the NCETM, of the most recent wave of activity can be found by following this link: https://www.ncetm.org.uk/news/46609
When I was given the opportunity to attend a ‘Shanghai Live’ session at Balcarras School in Cheltenham, it felt rather like I had read the book, now I was off to see the film!
Two lessons were showcased. I’m going to tell you about one, with a year two group, who were all sat in a long row in front of the teacher. After a short ‘true or false’ activity, where children participated by showing the front of their hands if the statement was true, the back of their hands if the statement was false, they were shown a ‘house’. This was introduced as the ‘ten building’.
Great questions – would have been nice if the children had been given time to discuss with each other… but liking it so far.
Next up, the connection to number bonds. On the board we have:
The children are taught to chant ‘Ten can be split into four and six’.
Another model:
‘Six and four makes ten’, they chant. Inverses!
So far, the visual imagery is strong, the connections are being made between images, models and language.
Sunny (the teacher), produces a new house which is organised differently; the ‘bright’ windows are arranged so no windows are bright in the top floor, one window is bright on the second floor etc. ‘Which is nicest’, she asks, ‘Yours or mine?’ Well, the children, of course, reading her body language, tell her that hers is best. They don’t know why, but they soon will! She explains that systematic thinking can help make sure you have remembered all the different arrangements of the windows. She then shows why there are 11 floors; because this is the number of ways we can ‘make 10’ in our house.
We look at a different house – a ‘five’ house. We notice that there are six floors in the ‘five house. The pattern is explained. (I wish the children had been allowed to discover this for themselves!) Now, finally, the children do something. All given the same sheet of paper, on which are drawn three different houses. They are to shade different numbers of windows on each floor in the house that they choose to work with, to find all the different ways to make their ‘house’ number. Still no physical resources, no support for lower achieving pupils, and no extension for the girl at the end who blatantly knew it all before the lesson started! We work on this for five minutes.
And off we go again. Sunny shows what the houses should have looked like. She demonstrates some of the models of ‘making’ different numbers, and their inverses, but this time includes missing numbers, children participate through ‘hands up and I’ll choose you’ strategies. With an emphasis on pattern building, a vital problem solving and reasoning skill, the value of this activity is clear.
Finally, we have some more true and false statements – addressing potential misconceptions, re-enforcing key concepts such as the idea that the house has one more floor than its number. So a ‘four’ house will have five floors etc. And some children are asked to explain why they think the statement is true or false.
An interesting lesson; but is Shanghai maths for us? I liked the imagery of the houses. I liked the connections being made between these images and the models that show pairs of numbers totalling ten, including inverses and missing numbers. I liked the ‘plenary’ that addressed potential misconceptions through the ‘true or false’ activity.
I’m concerned that there were no physical resources available. I’m concerned that there was no apparent differentiation. I’m concerned that the balance of teacher talk and pupil talk was weighted very much towards the teacher side. I’m concerned that the lack of discussion may result in ‘fact’ driven learning and didactic teaching, rather than collaborative teaching and learning that encourages conceptual understanding and the capacity to reason mathematically.
There is a vast army of excellent mathematics teachers who produce lessons at least of this quality day in and day out. Robert Wilne (Director for Secondary, NCETM) made a valid point by suggesting that consistency is a key issue. If every teacher in England taught this quality of lesson on a daily basis, perhaps our position on the league table would rise. Shanghai certainly has consistency. Teachers returning from Shanghai report observing identical lessons taught by different teachers in different schools.
But what else does Shanghai do that might explain the high achievement of the pupils? Suppose, as in Shanghai, teachers in England were to have the benefits of specialising in maths, only teaching two half hour lessons a day, with ample opportunity to engage in peer- supported CPD through lessons study and observation of good practice on a weekly basis. Just suppose. Suppose there was an expectation that every parent would support the completion of daily maths homework. Just suppose. Wouldn’t that result in an improvement of the quality of teaching and learning in mathematics? Perhaps, rather than cherry-picking the elements of good practice from Shanghai that suit us, we should experiment with the whole model of teaching and learning of mathematics in Shanghai, wouldn’t that make sense?