LYME REGIS: Two primary school tutors from Shanghai are to teach maths at St Michael’s Primary School.

Mrs Kai Ding and Mrs Shiwei Lu will be working and teaching alongside headteacher Ms Annabelle Grose, who went on a research visit to MingQiang Primary School in the Minhang District of Shanghai last September.

The three-week exchange is part of a project, funded by the Department for Education (DfE), to help English primary school teachers understand and implement some of the key elements of Shanghai maths teaching that have proved so effective in helping school pupils in China reach levels of attainment far ahead of their counterparts in England and the rest of the world.

Ms Grose said: “We’re very excited about carrying on the research started in Shanghai.

“The relationships that were built during our visit were vital in ensuring that the teachers will be able to come and focus on the key aspects that we have chosen to work on.

“We will be really focusing on the lesson design and teaching for mastery.

“We will be designing lessons as a team and trialling the Teacher Research Group model with a particular focus on the procedural and conceptual variation. The planning of just a few examples and looking at the same concept from many mathematical angles is important.

“This is just the start of us moving the new mastery curriculum forward.”

It is the first project being run as part of the National Maths Hubs programme, funded by the DfE, and coordinated by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM).

A total of 32 Maths Hubs have been established across England and 29 teachers from Shanghai are currently working in 15 different Maths Hub areas around England.