News Stories
Posted on January 15th 2020
Maths Department Hosts First 'Lesson Study'
The Mathematics department at Harris Academy Rainham hosted their first public ‘Lesson Study’ on Wednesday 11th December 2019.
‘Lesson Study’, which is based upon the practices used by teachers in Japan, aims to improve the quality of teaching and enhance student learning and progress.
The use of ‘collaborative research’, within groups of teachers as well as external experts who can also participate, provides professional development for teachers as well as improving the educational materials within the school and ensuring the progress of the students.
Harris Academy Rainham was fortunate to have been able to collaborate with Professor Dietmar Kuchemann (Co-Author of ICCAMS Lessons), who has valuable expertise of task design, and Jacqueline Mann (Robert Clack), who has a wealth of knowledge in both planning and delivering Lesson Studies of her own and for others.
The purpose of this research lesson was to improve the understanding of multiplicative relationships for pupils in a Year 8 class (8x/Ma3) for them to have a deeper understanding of fundamental mathematics skills.
The intention was, that by the end of the lesson, students would be able to recognise that proportional relationships were multiplicative instead of additive and then be able to apply this knowledge to a problem and justify their methods.
We were delighted to welcome Dr Sachi Hatakenaka (Education Consultant), Paul Crossley (Redhill Academy), Richard Cowley (UCL), Gill Leahy (London Thames Maths Hub) to Harris Academy Rainham on this day, to observe the lesson that was taught.
Current staff members from a variety of different departments across the school also observed the lesson live and participated, alongside the others, in a post-lesson discussion. During this discussion many useful observations were made that all members of staff involved were able to learn from.
Students were all challenged and engaged and thought deeply about the content of the lesson, therefore it was a total success. Teachers involved gained valuable insights into students learning and progress which will help develop and promote good practice for future ‘Lesson Studies’ to come at Harris Academy Rainham.
Find out more about professional learning at Harris Academy Rainham.
