2016 ACME Conference
Influences and impact: policies for high-quality
mathematics education
12 July 2016, The Royal Society, London
The 2016 ACME conference, 'Influences and impact: policies for
high-quality mathematics education' was held on Tuesday 12 July
chaired by Professor Alex Halliday
FRS, Vice President and Physical Secretary at the Royal
Society and Interim ACME Chair. The 150 delegates were made up
of classroom teachers and senior leaders, academics in mathematics
education, policy makers, representatives from industry and others
with an interest in mathematical education.
A report from the conference, summarising the key
messages from the keynotes, panel session and workshops can be
found here.
Policy keynote
Nick Gibb MP, Minister of
State for Schools, delivered the political keynote speech and made
a number of announcements, including:
£41 million to support more than 8,000
primary schools to adopt the
mastery approach to mathematics
teaching
A 2 year extension of the Shanghai-England
mathematics teacher exchange programme
The
terms of reference for a review into the feasibility of
compulsory maths study for all pupils up to
18, announced in March and undertaken by
Professor Sir Adrian Smith FRS
The launch of tender for a new National Mathematics
Education Centre
The publication of four new reports on initial
teacher education and teacher development that
follow the
Carter Review of Initial Teacher Education.
The reports cover core content of teacher training courses,
mentoring, behaviour management and professional development
standards:
Workshops
Delegates came together in a number of workshop sessions led by
ACME members to discuss four key areas;
initial teacher education, assessment of primary
mathematics,
professional development and mathematics to 18.
Panel session
The afternoon saw a Question Time-style panel session with
high-level discussion around the strategic priorities for
mathematics education including teacher supply, the development of
the curriculum and its implementation, and how to engage young
people in mathematics.
The panel was chaired by Dr Simon
Gallacher, Senior Consultant at the Nuffield
Foundation and Principal Lecturer at the University of
Roehampton.
Panellists (from left to right) included,
Professor Sir Adrian Smith FRS,
Vice-Chancellor of the University of London;
Professor Terezinha Nunes,
Professor of Educational Studies at the University of
Oxford;
Lynne McClure, Director of Cambridge
Mathematics;
Dan Abramson, Head of King's College
London Mathematics School.
Mathematics keynote
The day was brought to a close by Dr Vicky
Neale, Whitehead Lecturer at the University of
Oxford, delivering an engaging keynote speech about patterns of
prime numbers in jewellery.
You can find the full list of speaker and panellist biographies
here.