A restructure within the NSW Education Department includes a proposal to axe 245 non-school based teaching roles, while also scrapping Best in Class, a program that sees top teachers deployed to schools to help boost student results.
The Maths Growth Team, which is a team of expert teachers who mentor other educators in how to teach the mathematics effectively, is part of that program and will continue, but with a reduced number of team members. YouTube star mathematician Eddie Woo is a teacher at Cherrybrook High and leads the highly skilled team, whose numbers will drop from 14 trainers to 11.
The specialist team was set up in 2020 as a response to a drop in mathematics performance and a maths teacher shortage. Since then, it has delivered maths training to 1376 classroom teachers across 263 schools.
The decision to reduce the numbers of skilled experts available to boost capability of existing teachers and, ultimately, support better student results, has left some of the state’s public-school teachers and principals stunned. Next year’s changes will leave the team with half the number of trainers than was planned when the program was established under the former state government.
“We need more investment in maths teaching, and the approach of the Maths Growth Team has been shown to work,” says Mathematical Association of NSW consultant Miriam Lees.
“Placing targeted support and specialist teachers in schools across the state, especially in regions, is critical because many schools can’t afford to release teachers for professional development.”
Woo’s Maths Growth Team is listed by the state’s education department as a core initiative under the NSW mathematics strategy, which states that teaching quality and student learning outcomes in maths will improve as a result of the program.
“Given cuts have also been made to professional development, it is even more important to have effective maths teacher training,” Lees said.
Specialist teacher support boost students’ results
With this year’s NAPLAN results revealing one in three students is not proficient in maths, and new data released by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership showing around 32 per cent of maths teachers have not received specific training in the subject, many experts believe there is an urgent need for more specialist mathematics teaching support for educators.
Currently, by the time Australian students reach year nine, only around one in 10 are assessed as ‘exceeding’ in the subject.
But Lees says cuts to other teams in the department’s teaching and learning division, including the HSC Strategy unit were even more substantial than the cutting of roles within the maths team.
That HSC Strategy program – teacher training designed to boost student results and address widening equity gaps between NSW schools – will no longer exist in its current form.
A department spokesperson says plans to ‘streamline’ the teaching and learning division will mean the “majority of functions will not cease” but will simply move to other parts of the division.
“HSC students will get more support, not less, as a result of the reorganisation,” the department spokesperson says.
Out-of-field teaching needs support structures
Woo believes out-of-field teaching can be especially challenging in maths.
“If you don’t have subject specialisation in the area you’re teaching, it is difficult to have a full understanding of how all the knowledge fits together,” he says.
“Maths is hierarchical. Every single concept connected which makes it challenging to step into the subject and teach without the expertise in the area.”
NSW Teachers Federation president Henry Rajendra says the announcement to reduce the division has shocked public-school staff.
“At the federation state council over the weekend, teachers who were directly impacted were devastated and so were the teachers in schools that had benefited from their support,” says Rajendra.
“Those positions in the department have been slated to be ‘deleted’ at a time when we are trying to rebuild the public education system. It’s counter intuitive.”
