World’s End Junior School was one of the 35 schools in the country selected to take part in the Shanghai Teacher Exchange (a national DfE project supported by Nick Gibb, Minister of State for School Standards, and coordinated by the NCETM).

During the first part of this exchange, Ms Craddock (our Maths Leader & Deputy Head teacher), spent two weeks working in schools in Shanghai, China. In January, two of the teachers Miss Duncan worked with in Shanghai, came to England to teach.

Miss Duan Yuexing taught Y2 about multiplication and Mrs Zhu Guangqin taught Y4 about fractions. During the two weeks of the UK part of this exchange, the Shangahi teachers worked closely with Miss Duncan and Mrs Hackett (Maths Leader from Parkfield and joint Teaching for Mastery Lead from Central Maths Hub). Several of our teachers took the opportunity to observe and learn from them.

Through this exchange project Ms Craddock has been able to identify key factors in how mathematics is taught in Shanghai that makes their learners so successful – and now she can work on implementing these approaches here at World’s End.

It is not just the teachers and children at Parkfield and World’s End Juniors who will benefit from this exchange however. During the two weeks of the exchange, 217 teachers from 77 different settings came to Parkfield to observe maths lessons and take part in post-lesson discussions. Ms Craddock and Mrs Hackett has also been delivering Shanghai feedback workshops, which have been attended by 360 teachers so far. There will therefore be 100s and eventually 1000s of teachers and children who will benefit from this project.

At the end of the two weeks Ms Craddock attended a reception at the Chinese Embassy in London, with Mr Gibb, the directors of the NCETM, officials from

DfE and the Chinese education authority, as well as teachers involved in the exchange.

If you’d like to find out more about the Shanghai Exchange Project, contact Miss Duncan.

Remember: This website provides information about the way we are leading the way in mathematics education and our school Twitter feed provides useful updates.

Mrs Hackett and Miss Duncan remain good friends with Miss Duan Yuexing and Mrs Zhu Guangqin and are still learning from them. Everyone involved learnt so much from this project … and the collaboration and learning continues.

To find out more about what we learned and how this is changing our own work, read the Shanghai Special. Download it from the link below.

Shanghai Special Issue 3

To find out more, email or call to speak to Ms Craddock.

Shanghai-Special-Issue-3