A Day in the Life of our Head of Maths

Leading the Mathematics department at a busy online school sounds like a stressful job, but Pip Caunt takes it all in her stride. “I love my job at Wendover Online School – there is so much collaboration between staff, and we all know the pupils so well, that it is a happy and successful place both to work and to learn.”

Pip has plenty of teaching experience and believes Wendover’s programme of online lessons for small classes brings out the best in pupils. In this blog we’ll take a look at her role as Maths Lead, and what this involves in addition to her teaching responsibilities.

Regular meetings for key staff

Pip starts her week with an online meeting of key staff, where educational and pastoral issues are discussed, and strategies can quickly be put in place to help where needed.

At Wendover, staff communications are quick and easy, since the school was designed from the outset to maximise the use of digital resources. WhatsApp, email and virtual meetings mean that any member of staff can easily approach others to sort out problems or raise issues fast, which has a direct, positive impact on pupils.

Supporting secure learning of Maths

Mathematics is a key subject in any school, requiring a formal Scheme of Work that will ensure pupils at every age can not only recall how to tackle a problem, but also understand why this works. At Wendover, Pip takes care to write Maths Schemes of Work that can readily be adapted to individual pupils and their needs, and helps staff ensure that the Maths curriculum is covered in the best way for individual pupils.

Small classes are great for learning maths

“As an online school with small classes, we can be very flexible in how we teach each element of the Maths curriculum,” says Pip. “I give my team the freedom to adapt their lessons – if they need to go back over something to ensure their pupils are secure, that is far more important than sticking rigidly to our plan. By adapting to suit their needs we find pupils gain a much deeper understanding of the basics, and can rapidly build on these secure foundations.”

An holistic approach to Maths

As Maths Lead, Pip ensures that Mathematics skills are taught at appropriate times to enable pupils to access topics in other subjects. For example, by liaising with the Year 10 Physics teacher it was possible to adapt the Scheme of Work to ensure specific Maths skills were learned in time to be used in Physics.

“This kind of cross-curricular discussion between staff at Wendover is hard to manage in a larger school,” comments Pip, “but it really helps students progress across different subjects.”

Online resources for Maths

As Maths Lead, Pip will also spend part of her day checking that pupils are making good progress in Maths. The infrastructure for delivering high quality Maths teaching and learning is all online at Wendover: from Schemes of Work to background information for staff, the school was built to provide safe, easy access to everything.

Pip has all the information she needs at her fingertips. She can see daily how each student is progressing, check test results and identify any problems. When it comes to writing individual assessments and reports, the system allows every Maths teacher to provide a personal and detailed insight into how each of their pupils is doing.

Improving the enjoyment of Maths

Pip is delighted that small class sizes and this flexible approach to lessons means that pupil enjoyment of Mathematics is blossoming.

“We have pupils who hated Maths before joining Wendover, but now enjoy lessons and are making great progress!” smiles Pip. “Our personalised approach to checking whether each pupil understands the lesson, and finding a way to help them if not, means that pupils aren’t expected to conform to a system that moves on regardless.”

If you would like to find out more about how pupils learn Maths at Wendover Online School, please contact +44 1604 859 331 or email on enquiries@wendoverschool.com.