Manley Park Primary School
Manchester, UK
What makes Manley Park an Accredited School?
What struck us about Manley Park’s maths lessons was how much the children were allowed to get stuck in. In KS1 classes, we saw children using textbooks on the floor and being allowed to fully explore a concept using a variety of resources.
Many students at Manley Park are EAL, so we were very impressed to see the children engaged and interested in their maths journal writing. During our visit, we saw some excellent writing about maths.
School at a glance:
- Two-form entry school of 500~ students
- High number of students speak English as an additional language (EAL)
- Located in inner-city area
- Rated by Ofsted as “Outstanding”
“We are proud of the significant progress that pupils make in our school, particularly in mathematics, where pupils continually make greater progress than those of their peers nationally.”
– Ben Tudor, Assistant Headteacher
In their own words
Our Maths — No Problem! journey
We have a rigorous approach to CPD concerning Singapore maths pedagogy. All of the teachers who teach maths in KS1 and KS2 have been delegates on the in-depth Singapore maths training delivered by Dr Yeap Ban Har. This fantastic training has been further embedded through weekly Lesson Study/Reflective Inquiry sessions in all year groups. This commitment to classroom-based research and time for teacher dialogue/collaboration has supported our teachers to enhance the implementation of Singapore maths immensely.
Our maths lead has worked closely with Maths — No Problem! trainer Simon Norton to plan and facilitate a Maths Professional Learning Community for the Manchester Teaching School Alliance. We are also members of the North West One Maths Hub and partake in research projects through this association. We are currently undertaking the national textbook project amongst other activities, and central to this is our involvement in the Hub’s Singapore Network.
We are immensely proud of the significant progress our pupils make in mathematics, where they continually make greater progress than those of their peers nationally. These results are replicated on an annual basis. A couple of years ago our pupils were in the second percentile nationally for progress made by pupils in maths by the end of KS2. Much of the success of our pupils can be attributed to following a maths curriculum built on a Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract (CPA) approach to teaching maths that values exploration over instruction and is underpinned by reasoning.
Maths — No Problem! in our school
Our pupils are happy and comfortable using the textbooks and workbooks. The Year 1 children sit on the carpet with a lot of concrete materials and are able to work through problems using the textbooks, and record their findings in their journals. The programme has also impacted successfully on the standard of writing. We maintain high quality displays in classrooms, showing not just what our pupils are doing in that lesson, but also modelling a range of problem-solving heuristics.
We have opened our doors to colleagues from around 20 schools in the North West who were not using Singapore maths pedagogy, and who were keen to see how the textbooks and workbooks had been implemented. These events included discussions on our rationale for undertaking this project, lesson observations and separate SLT and teacher Q&A sessions.
School contact details
Contact name:
Ben Tudor – Assistant Headteacher
Address:
Manley Park Primary School
College Road,
Whalley Range,
Manchester,
M16 0AA
Phone number:
0161 8813808
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