My heart quite literally filled with happiness and something approaching awe.  A petite mixed-race lady walked out onto the stage during a BBC performance and she started playing the double-bass with vigour and gusto. I knew who she was. I wasn’t at all surprised by her presence on stage, but it didn’t stop the joy I felt from pricking the corners of my eyes with tears.  This lady was Chi-chi Nwanoku and I was mesmerised. I swelled with thankfulness that she had permeated the classical music scene and had made it her life’s ambition to show people that classical music belongs to us all.

Chi-chi was born to an Irish mother and Nigerian father in 1950s London. The family faced challenges in securing housing, and Margaret, Chi-chi's mother, was disowned by her own family due to the interracial relationship. Despite these difficulties, Chi-chi, the eldest of five, rose to prominence as a classical music champion and double bassist. The founding of the Chineke! Orchestra in 2015 may appear as a classic rags-to-riches tale, but it conceals more complexity, the first being that music wasn't Chi-chi's first career choice.

Initially, Chi-chi’s path to success appeared to lie in athleticism.  Aged eight, a coach spotted her athletic talent and she set aside her musical interests to focus on running. Even though she was the smallest person on the track, she had ‘the fastest leg speed’ and this appeared to be where her future lay. She also started to attend a selective school – Kendrick - in Reading.  By 15, Chi-chi showed real athletic ability and represented her school in hockey, netball and as a sprinter.  Chi-chi was preparing for the 1976 Olympics when she agreed to play in a ladies football match.   Unfortunately, it was during this match that she suffered an injury which ended her sprinting career.  

What strikes me about Chi-chi’s story is that that moment could have been the end. With the injury she suffered, her hopes of being an Olympian ended so abruptly, she could have fizzled out into obscurity. She didn’t.  She bounced back. Whilst awaiting her operation for her right knee she decided that she could begin to devote time to piano practice and decided to enter the annual school music competition for the first time.  Better still, she won the competition playing Chopin.  Learning to deal with challenges, preferably with some support, but also through the development of resilience and resourcefulness, are skills that need to be taught and rehearsed.  It’s evident that Chi-chi had this in her relationship with her parents.  Their encouragement and love is summed up in an article from April 2017 where she recalled the words of her father: “There is nothing you cannot do in this world Chi-chi, but what you do have to do is study your books and excel.”   From my perspective, Chi-chi took ownership of these words and advice, finding the strength to believe in herself and work hard.

Central to Chi-chi’s story is her indomitable spirit, supportive and encouraging adults guiding her, opportunities through school and a commitment to instigating change.  The instrument for which she is now world renowned, she only took up after her accident aged 15. The availability of instruments in her school should not be minimised, nor should the kindness and support she received from her music teacher John Dussek who conveyed his belief that she could have a career in music.  Music and the arts are often overlooked in education, deemed nice to haves but less than the 3Rs.  I am not a musician, but I thank my secondary school music teacher - Mrs Buckley - as well as the primary school I attended for providing instruments and a curriculum that included music and art, which we might not have come across otherwise. I still recall taking music exams as a young person, the pieces of music I learnt but also being a part of the school choir and the London Schools’ Symphonic Band.  These experiences fostered a lifelong appreciation for which I am grateful.  As a teacher in south London, I’d often play classical music for my pupils during writing tasks. Unsurprisingly, they initially moaned, but they got used to it, some enjoyed it or found it soothing, some admitted that they had started to do the same whilst studying, and occasionally some even asked me questions about the pieces and the composers.

Schools and teachers play such an important role in shaping our lives and our futures.  It’s the reason why it’s crucial that childhood is filled with a rich variety of people and experiences.  Without exposure to new things, we cannot make an informed choice, determine what we like or dislike, learn or acquire new skills and interests.

Chi-chi’s decision to start the orchestra has meant that people across the world hear from racially minoritised composers whose works received less recognition, as well as musicians who might otherwise be overlooked. She has also rather cleverly started to dismantle barriers between classical music and musicians and more popular music.  In her debut concert, she chose to include black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade for the Orchestra and In Memoriam: Stephen Lawrence by Philip Herbert .  These deliberate and conscious decisions increase the audience’s awareness and it makes it more likely, more possible, that racially minoritised young people will believe that they can engage in this art form.

I’ve been fortunate to hear the Chineke! Orchestra and singers as well as cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.  I don’t think that I knew that a racially representative orchestra was missing from my life or that seeing people with a wide range of complexions, hair styles and appearances would touch me. But it did.  And for that, I am grateful.

Chi-chi is a Professor of Double Bass Historical Studies at the Royal Academy of Music and has broadcast and guest presented on a number of BBC shows. She’s won a number of business awards too, but for me, what she has achieved through representation in the Chineke! Orchestra and Foundation is genuinely inspiring and literally left me radiating an inexplicable electricity and joy.  

If you would like support on race equity and how to embed anti-racism in your school/setting/trust, find out more here.  For training on using supportive anti-racist language, you can sign up to our online course.

This blog forms part of the series for Black History Month 2023’s theme: Celebrating Our Sisters.

Sources: 

An awe inspiring British role model | Daily Mail, Rebecca Hardy 21 April 2017
Chi-chi Nwanoku |The Big Issue, Adrian Lobb 15 Jun 2023
Royal Academy of Music: Chi Chi Nwanoku
 

Chromebooks have risen in popularity as pupil devices over the past decade, with this lower-cost, simple computer now one of the most frequently found in schools. The widespread adoption of the Google Workspace for Education tools (including Google Classroom) during the pandemic further reinforced their status as an ideal educational device, particularly in the hands of pupils, especially when using Google tools.

It is now commonplace to find trolleys of Chromebooks shared amongst primary school classes, for use in computing lessons and IT across the curriculum. In secondary schools and MATs, the Chromebook is often the chosen device for one-to-one schemes.

Uptake of Chromebooks by teachers as their main teaching device has arguably been slower, however, at least in this part of the world. This may be because the teacher is used to using particular tools that are not directly available on Chromebooks, such as Windows-based interactive whiteboard software. Perhaps a Chromebook is perceived as a device that is great for the learners, but not functional enough for the staff.

However, a Chromebook designed for higher-performance tasks can be a powerful and flexible teaching device that is ideal for 21st century instruction in a cloud-based environment. And they can still save money for schools when compared to more traditional laptop computers. 

For teachers making the transition to using a Chromebook as a primary device for teaching, the change can feel daunting. It often means finding different ways of doing things. With this in mind, HFL has written a new guide, entitled Teaching with your Chromebook.

In this free e-book, teachers can learn about using these devices for classroom instruction, from connecting to the interactive screen to enhancing accessibility.

Across the guide, readers will learn how to:

Connect their Chromebook to classroom screens and interactive whiteboards for whole-class instruction.

• Harness online whiteboard tools such as Smart Lumio for dynamic lessons and collaborations.
• Use Google Slides as a teaching tool.
• Share digital materials like worksheets, writing frames and more, to pupil devices.
• Facilitate shared interactive learning activities for active engagement and challenge.
• Record and share their Chromebook screen for pupil-accessible video resources.
• Adjust accessibility settings to assist access to the content being presented.
• Use various keyboard shortcuts, multiple-desktops and more.

In addition to helping teachers get used to Chromebooks as a teaching device, the guide signposts online training materials from Google, for those that are completely new to this type of computer and the Google Workspace platform.

In creating this guide, the aim has been twofold. Firstly, teachers that are making the switch will save time when finding their way with using their new device. Secondly, schools can find out more about what a Chromebook can offer as a teaching device, and therefore make a more informed decision about whether it is the right device for them, when they are planning their digital strategy.

If you need advice about which Chromebooks may be right for your setting, please contact us at technology@hfleducation.org. 

And don’t forget our popular free e-book, 50 things you can do with Chromebooks and Google Workspace, is still available to provide teachers with some further inspiration for using this platform.

Please refer to the DfE Laptop, Desktop and Tablets Standards in Schools and Colleges, when making purchasing decisions about devices.

So, you have been asked to lead a subject across the school, or you may have been leading a subject in primary for a few years now or in a small school you may be responsible for more than one subject.  Do you really know how to monitor and strengthen your subject in Early Years? Especially as sometimes the subject has a different name. Keeping on top of monitoring, checking that your colleagues are confident teaching your subject, monitoring attainment and keeping up to date on current thinking - I think I can help. 

During my teaching career, colleagues from other year groups visit EYFS and are slightly discombobulated by the layout of the classroom, the lack of desks and chairs and how learning is taking placed and being assessed.  Often the passing comment as they leave EYFS is ‘I don’t know how you do it!’  Well, it is the best place in the world to teach, although I might be bias, but what I really want is for colleagues leading a subject to come into the provision and find their subject in action, to feel confident talking about how the early years teaching underpins later learning in Year 1 and beyond.

Foundation Stage really does ‘what is says on the tin’, it lays the foundation for learning, the behaviours, and beliefs that children can be successful regardless of their starting points.

The Early Years Foundation Stage seeks to provide: 

• Quality and consistency in all early years settings, so that every child makes good progress, and no child gets left behind. 
• A secure foundation through planning for the learning and development of each individual child and assessing and reviewing what they have learned regularly. 
• Partnership working between practitioners and with parents and/or carers. 
• Equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported.

EYFS Statutory Framework (2024) 

There are seven areas of learning each interwoven, so learning makes sense.  The four overarching principles of EYFS are:

• Every child is a unique child 
• Children learn through positive relationships 
• Children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults 
• Learning and development - children develop and learn at different rates

Alongside these principles, the Characteristics of Effective Learning (CoEL): 

• Playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’ 
• Active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements 
• Creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things 

The three CoEL can be applied to all subjects at all ages.  A great way to think about learning and how adults apply these characteristics is by reminiscing about the last time you bought a new mobile phone. Let’s be honest, none of us read the extensive manual in the box.  If you are anything like me, you held the box, slid open the lid, listened to the unique sound as the box slid open, then pressed buttons, and followed instructions on the screen until all contacts have moved across and we have access to our favourite apps.  You played, explored, thought critically and were creative.

You may remember reading various reports following the Covid pandemic that attempted to measure the impact on pupils’ learning, such as, Understanding Progress in the 2020/21 academic year. This was a fairly early one from the DfE which aimed to link outcomes in the first half of autumn term 2020/21 with outcomes at the same point in 2019/20 at pupil level and compare their progress with similar pupils in earlier academic years.

“We find that all year groups have experienced a learning loss in reading, ranging from 1.6 months to 2.0 months. The learning losses in mathematics were greater. In primary schools, learning losses averaged just over 3 months”. 

Others reported similarly, including the EEF’s published findings from the longer term NFER study on the impact of the pandemic on younger pupils’ attainment. But if you ask colleagues teaching any year group, I think you are probably hearing the same as me, “We are still trying to get the learning back”.

In my advisory role, I work alongside many different teachers and their pupils. In more and more instances, I am being asked to help schools to address the fluency and language in children’s mathematics so that their reasoning can improve. 

To support this, we’ve had a deep look at children’s approaches and tried to identify how we can make a difference. Using the broadest brush strokes, I can say that I have seen patterns. Younger children are not yet secure enough in their subitising skills to use them effectively to calculate with them. This limits them to their one-to-one counting strategies and returning to zero when asked to address number combinations. 

Many older children are similarly constrained, identifying one value in any combination, and then counting on or back from there using their fingers. The repertoire of known facts does not seem to be progressing and the strategies to calculate more efficiently are almost absent.

So, does it matter if our children are using their fingers?

I recently read a research article to quench my own curiosity - “Development of number combination skill in the early school years: when do fingers help?” by Jordan, Kaplan, Ramineni and Locuniak (2008).

There has been much research to suggest that “along the path to mastery, fingers provide a natural scaffold for calculation”. There is even evidence that calculation skills were derived from finger sequencing in the first place!

I am sure you have recognised the propensity to use fingers to identify values and quantities in young children and this seems to be a very important start to “help children represent and manipulate quantities”. It becomes an important tool in their armoury to “facilitate the transition between early nonverbal representations and conventional symbolic representations”.

I think we can all agree that it is essential to our youngest learners (and can be celebrated) but, as the article goes on to explore, “There are questions, however, about the timing of finger use. When do children benefit from using their fingers and when do fingers potentially get in the way of development?”

From counting to calculating

Jordan et al carried out a longitudinal study of children, assessing confidence in number combinations for addition and subtraction and children’s approaches in Years 1, 2 and 3. They were specifically investigating whether they used their fingers to calculate the solution.

In Year One, the “frequency of finger use was a strong and reliable predictor of number combination accuracy.

By the end of Year 3, however, there was a small but significant negative correlation between finger use and accuracy... finger counting errors are more common on combinations with larger totals (e.g. > 10) (Gray and Tall, 1994)”.

So perhaps we are beginning to understand that whilst it’s a key element of early understanding of number, there is a point at which the reliance on counting, and using fingers, is prohibitive to efficient calculation and even accuracy. I think we would also agree that a child reliant on using fingers to calculate is not a fluent mathematician.

But what does a fluent mathematician look like?

In “Mental Maths: Just About What We Do In Our Heads?”, Ineson and Babbar (2013) identify what we can call mental mathematics and its place in the curriculum. Interestingly, we did this as a team too, before we began to write the HFL Education ESSENTIALmaths resources and if you have taken part in our central training, you may remember one of our ‘four wise men’, Richard Skemp, who explored relational understanding in much detail, examining conceptual and procedural understanding in human thinking.

Ineson and Babbar explain his role in the debate.

“It is useful to draw on the distinction that Richard Skemp made between instrumental understanding of mathematics and relational understanding. He wrote about pupils developing an ‘instrumental’ understanding of mathematics where they follow ‘rules without reasons’ (Skemp, 1978). The alternative approach is to develop ‘relational’ understanding which encourages pupils to know both what to do with a calculation and why.”

They draw upon a useful analogy of a tourist in London, who uses just the underground system to get around town, compared to a London taxi driver setting out on the same journey. The tourist is fine to use the tube map, as long as the trains are all running, but the taxi driver would have alternative routes up their sleeve, responding to varied traffic conditions.

“The underground user is like the pupil with instrumental understanding; able to follow rules to go between different concepts within mathematics – for example, able to follow an algorithm to solve long division. The London taxi driver on the other hand, is the pupil with relational understanding – able to navigate in a multitude of ways between different mathematical concepts.”

In the end, it must be about identifying the missing parts in this instrumental thinking and then reflecting upon how we are teaching them. As I’ve been working alongside teachers in schools, I have often heard a familiar refrain, “I have never really stepped back so much before to watch them and their learning. I am too busy ‘teaching’ the curriculum”.

Every primary teacher can surely relate to this (the ‘when do I have time’ pressure). But I can promise that every teacher I have worked with has reflected upon the impact of this investment on children’s learning without any regrets.

There are lots of ways to provide depth and breadth in opportunities so that you can reflect upon children’s learning.

If you are a teacher in Year 3, and an ESSENTIALmaths user, you will be familiar with this game about halfway through the autumn term (3LS6). This is a really key moment (step 7) in the learning sequence.

Even if you are teaching in older year groups, have a play with this game to find any gaps in your children’s repertoire. Play the game several times and watch the strategies grow.

You can input numbers onto the outside corners to support learners or leave the children to input the first numbers and make up their own as they continue to rehearse. 

Then pupils continue to find the difference between corner numbers until they either reach zero on all sides or run out of squares.

You might decide you need to go back to what they do and don’t know.

Source: HFL Education Fluency Session Materials

If you’re lucky enough to have taught in several different year groups, you could map the children’s learning journey from the foundation stage upwards. Sometimes the gap is much earlier in their learning.

Several teachers I know are beginning to make much more use of their working walls and their fluency sessions, following similar types of analyses, to address the specific gaps they have found.

The time they have spent just stepping back and listening to children in these open activities has been fully repaid by the progress they have seen through the year. These have become ideal opportunities for regular reinforcement and continued rehearsal. Blank laminated models of ‘Multi-Strategy Mats’ and key models that are flexible for different choices of approach are helpful pupil scaffolds.

For more ideas about using working walls, read Nicola Adams’s blog 4 ways to make your maths working wall work and this one from Siobhan King: Primary maths planning, modelling and working walls – dig out your sticky notes!

Calculations to encourage and support fluency

Babbar and Ineson compared the approaches to long division of primary and secondary student teachers. They were asked to solve the problem ‘207 ÷ 23’ themselves and then outline how they would support a pupil encountering difficulty in solving it.

“Secondary student teachers were found to be more secure in the approaches that they used themselves but struggled to think of alternative ways to support pupils in developing approaches for long division. Their favoured approach was that of an algorithm...

Primary student teachers, on the other hand, could suggest a range of alternative approaches for supporting learners.”

This is the professional skill embedded in our DNA and we can’t afford to lose it.

If you fancy a little play yourself, have a quick look at these three calculations on the NCETM website and consider how you would like to teach them.

These were the examples used by Gwen Ineson and Sunita Babbar in Mental maths: just about what we do in our heads?

NCETM: Three calculations to encourage and support fluency

Is this a key focus in your school?  

The HFL Education Primary Maths team can work with you in school to develop the teaching and learning of multiplication facts through The Fluency Package.

Find out more about the HFL Education Curriculum Impact Packages. 

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References

Nancy C. Jordan, David Kaplan, Chaitanya Ramineni and Maria N. Locuniak: Development of number combination skill in the early school years: when do fingers help? Developmental Science 11:5 (2008), pp 662–668 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00715.x

Babbar, S. and Ineson, G. (2013) Mental Maths: Just About What We Do In Our Heads? eBook ISBN9780203762585

Skemp, R. R. (1978) ‘Relational understanding and instrumental understanding’ Mathematic Teaching, 77, 20–26

Babbar, S. and Ineson, G. (2013) ‘Mental mathematics: a comparison between primary and secondary trainee teachers’ strategies’, paper presented at British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics. Bristol University, UK. March 2013.

Denvir, H. and Askew, M. (2001) ‘Pupils’ participation in the classroom examined in relation to “interactive whole class teaching”’, Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics (BSRLM), 21, 1, 25-30. 

Gray, E. M. and Tall, D. O. (1994) ‘Duality, ambiguity and flexibility: a proceptual view of simple arithmetic’, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 25, 2, 115-141.