Students and staff at The Totteridge Academy are celebrating after winning ‘Maths Team of the Year’ at this year’s national TES Schools Awards.
The TES Schools Awards are an annual celebration of the commitment, quality and innovation shown by exceptional teachers and support staff across the country and garner huge numbers of nominations each year. This year’s ceremony took place at London’s Grosvenor House hotel and was an opportunity to praise teachers for the extraordinary impact they have upon the next generation of young people.
At this year’s celebration, The Totteridge Academy was awarded ‘Maths Team of the Year’ in recognition of the way staff have transformed students’ academic outcomes in recent years through their innovative practice.
Under the leadership of Principal Chris Fairbairn, and since joining national schools group United Learning, The Totteridge Academy has gone from strength to strength. The work of the maths department was instrumental in this, helping the school secure a ‘Good’ Ofsted judgement earlier this year. In their report, Inspectors praised the “highly effective” teaching in maths, which has led to vastly improved outcomes for students.
Now, the school’s maths results are in the top 1 percent nationally, when previously outcomes had been some of the lowest in the country. Students, no matter their starting points, are all making exceptional progress in maths, as demonstrated by the department’s Progress 8 score of +1.34. This is far higher than the national average of 0.
In receiving their TES Award, the maths department was praised for fostering a classroom culture where students’ ability to work as a team, think critically and give precise mathematical answers are all valued. All maths classrooms at the academy are set up to allow students to work in groups, helping them to develop their team work skills and become more confident in explaining challenging ideas to one another. Teachers have also developed a series of popular ‘maths chants’ which help students to think logically when faced with hard-to-grasp concepts.
The Totteridge Academy’s maths department is now sharing its best practice with other subject departments in the academy, as well as with other schools across United Learning. The team has offered ‘Excllence Days’ where teachers from within the Group can learn from their approach and view the pioneering department in action.
Chris Fairbairn, Principal at The Totteridge Academy, said:
“Over the past three years, our ambitious and inspiring maths department has managed to completely transform the way we teach maths at the academy. As well as leading to dramatically improved results, our maths teachers have fostered a deep appreciation for the subject in our young people who leave lessons happy and with a real sense of accomplishment. The department are fully deserving of this TES Award – I am so happy for each of them that their hard work is being recognised on a national scale.”