Tia Rapley

Background

About Tia Rapley

After completing my MaST and establishing myself a Lead Maths teacher (with Herts for Learning) I had become increasingly aware of practices from other year groups in my school and within other schools. I had an initial interest on the use of CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract)(Bruner, 1966) and was aware of the impact it can have on developing children’s conceptual understanding. I had noticed that when completing ‘book looks’ across my school and within my Lead Teacher role, I had noticed that teachers had taken Maths into an ‘abstract realm’ (Haylock, 2016) thus, children were struggling to grasp concepts and make links. I found myself in a similar predicament before taking on CPD – MaST made me acutely aware of the importance of taking a step back, simplifying structures before exposing them and using resources to support and challenge (regardless of ability). I saw developing my skills further with the NCETM to develop and work as Primary Mathematics Teaching for Mastery Specialists as an opportunity to develop my school and, also play a significant role in developing other schools. At the time, ‘Mastery Maths’ was a buzz word that was being echoed in training but with no significant explanation of how to achieve it. This was a time for me to develop and reflect on my own practice as well as planning on how to support others’. Since joining the University of Hertfordshire I have been developing the provision for Maths with guidance from research and the Core Content Framework and have been included in many initiatives. My current interest (basis for my MA) is exploring ITE student’s anxieties in Maths, which aims to determine triggers for this anxiety, impact of engaging in the taught course and future considerations.