Marjon hosts Maths for the Million event

Released: 19.11.18

Plymouth Marjon University played host to the Erasmus-funded project Maths for the Million this month, as part of the ongoing project to improve the teaching of maths across Europe.

A group teachers from European-based schools spent a week at Marjon discussing and learning new methods of teaching maths to young people. The aim of the three-year project is to reinvigorate and energise the teaching of maths in primary schools across Europe; using knowledge from different schools to better inform teaching styles.

Teachers travelled from European partner schools to share ideas on teaching maths and learn more about how different countries deliver maths to students. Teachers attended talks and conferences at Marjon before then inviting students from Ermington Primary School and St Andrew’s Primary School from Buckland for a practical session where the students taught the teachers different maths learning styles.

Mark Mitchell is the Assistant Head Teacher of Ermington Primary School and the Project Manager for the Maths for the Million scheme. He said he was pleased with how the project was taking shape.

“We’ve had some fantastic speakers talking about many different aspects of maths,” said Mark.

“It has provided a chance for teachers from different countries to share a little bit about maths education is like in their countries.

“The aim of the week is that teachers will go back to their own country energised and enthused about teaching maths to the next generation. It’s about renewing that enthusiasm to teach maths.”

The Maths for the Million project is now entering the second year of its programme and Mark has been pleased with how the project is taking shape, not just for teachers but for students as well.

Mark continued: “It’s a broad-reaching project and we’ve got a lot more to do but we’re making progress.

“Through the Maths for the Million project, funding has been put in place in the partner schools to put on training sessions to upskill their teachers. This means that the quality of teaching should go up and will continue to go up. That will obviously feed through to the children, and that’s what this is all about.”

With 16 foreign teachers and some extra UK teaching staff spending the week at Marjon for this event, Mark was delighted with the interaction Marjon is continuing to have with the Maths for the Million project.

“It has been really great working with Marjon this week,” said Mark.

“The interaction between Marjon and the schools involved in the project has been great. I think this whole thing is also improving relations between a lot of schools and Marjon is really helping to facilitate that.”