Frequently Asked Questions

If your school falls outside the preferred area (see 'Who can apply?') and you do meet the other criteria specified on 'Who can apply?', then you can still apply to be part of the study.

If you are selected and are part of the group receving the intervention, you need to be aware that your nominated staff will have to travel to the preferred areas for training and that, depending on logistics and travel budgets, much of the tailored mentoring may have to take place remotely (via face to face video link, email or any other appropriate methods)

No.  In order for solid research results, schools elected to particpate will be randomly allocated to either the control group or the intervention group.

If you represent a MAT, schools from your MAT will have to apply individually via our 'Apply to participate' page (as part of this process, schools will be asked to specify the name of the MAT they belong to, if any)

It is not guaranteed that all schools within a MAT will be selected to participate. Furthermore, if more than one school from a MAT is selected, all selected schools will be either be in the control group or the intervention group. This is because we recognise that MAT schools work closely together and there is a risk that, if one school within the MAT was in the control group and the other was in the intervention group, the control school could be influenced by the intervention school's experience.

If your school is one of the 50 schools in the control group, you will receive £750 to spend as you wish. If the trial is sucessful, you will also be eligible to receive the PD at a greatly reduced cost after the trial period.

If your school is one of the 50 schools in the intervention group, you will also receive £750 to spend as you wish.   The costs you will need to fund for each of the 2-3 staff attending the training are

• travel costs to/from the 10 training sessions (2 consecutive full days followed by 7 half days in Spring 2023, and one half day in Autumn 2024), and 
• any teaching cover you feel is necessary whilst staff participate in the PD. 

This will depend on the job share split, the school profile.  If the job share is such that your nominated member of staff is at least 60% of the job share, then we would consider your application.  If the job share is 50:50 and BOTH staff were prepared to attend the training together (each school is allowed up to 3 members of staff) then we would consider your application, but if only one member of the job share would attend, then we would not consider a 50:50 job share.

If in doubt, please complete the 'Apply to participate' form and give details of any job share and whether both members of the job share would particpate in the comments section.

This will depend on your year group split.   If for example, YR is separate and Y1/Y2 are mixed, then we would consider your application.  If you have mixed YR/Y1 classs, then we would be unable to consider you.

If in doubt, please complete the 'Apply to participate' form and give details of mixed classes in the comments section.

As long as you have at least 15 fulltime children in each year group, you are eligible to apply.

As long as you have at least 15 fulltime children in YR by the end of October (when the first assessments will take place), you can apply.

No - when you submit the 'Apply to participate' form, you are expressing your interest in participating in the study.  There is no formal commitment for you to participate or for the TEEMUP study to accept your application.

Following the application cut off date, the Oxford TEEMUP researchers will formally invite schools to participate.  The selection of schools will be based on the criteria given in the application (including but not restricted to: free school meals percentage, location, EAL percentage, MAT membership)

Schools invited to participate will be asked to confirm their commitment by signing the memorandum of understanding - a formal document where the school representative will declare the school's support of the study and confirm the school's eligibility and participation regardless of whether it is allocated to the control or the intervention group.

Each intervention school can nominate up to 3 members of staff to participate in the training.   It is mandatory for a nominated YR and a Y1 teacher to attend - the Y1 teacher must be the member of staff who teaches all the children previously taught by the nominated YR teacher (this is so that we can measure the success of the training for children whose YR & Y1 teachers have both had the training).

In addition, a third member of staff may attend with the YR and Y1 teacher - this is entirely optional and could be a parallel YR/Y1 teacher, a HLTA or TA.  If the member of staff is not working in the same class as the nominated YR and Y1 teachers, the children taught by this member of staff will not be evaluated.

Schools allocated to the intervention group will be grouped into at least 4 cohorts, by location.  Training workshops will be held in locations convenient for all the schools in the cohort, with the aim that the location will be at most 45 minutes travel from each school in the cohort.

All schools participating in the study will be given a parental information sheet to hand out to parents of children in YR (in both years of the study).  This will explain the intervention and ask for parental approval for children to be assessed by the evaluation team.  If parental approval is not given, that child will be excluded from the 15 children assessed by the evaluation team.

In addition, there will be a second parent information sheet that teachers may use if they are in the intervention group, to explain what they will be doing during the study and inviting parental support.

For all schools participating (regardless of whether they are control or intervention), the YR teacher will need to supply the assessment team with the names of children for whom parental permission for assessment has been granted.  

The evaluation team will then randomly select 15 children from this list to assess; for the first YR cohort, these same children will also be assessed in Y1, so that the effects of the intervention over a two year period can be evaluated.

For intervention schools, as it is the class teacher who is participating in the PD, all children in the class will be affected by the changes in teaching and environment.  Individual children may be excluded from assessment (see the previous question 'who selects which children should be evaluated?') but, by its very nature, the entire class will be affected by the PD intervention.

For control schools, children's involvement during the period of the study is purely for evaluation, so this is addressed by the previous question 'who selects which children should be evaluated?'

The ethos behind the intervention is to support teachers in ensuring that their teaching of mathematics is getting the best results for all of their pupils. Whatever policies and practices you follow, the PD will be highly relevant as it will support teachers to

• explore best practice in mathematics teaching,
• work together to support transitions into and across classrooms,
• effectively engage the home in their children’s education,
• build their mathematical confidence, knowledge and understanding,
• explore novel techniques to strengthen children’s self-regulation
• and effectively self-evaluate, plan for improvement and monitor their own and children’s progress.

With small cohorts, workshops will be tailored to individual situations and the subsesquent mentoring has been designed to offer individual support to schools and their current learning environments, including taking account of any maths schemes in use.  

The initial PD and subsequent individual mentoring is designed to support all schools, whether they are following a mastery approach, using a scheme like white rose or following their own pedagogy/methods.  Its research-based design includes information and ideas from NCETM, DREME (Stanford) and the Erikson Maths Institute alongside the methods of the successful FEEL study in which the TEEMUP research team were key players. 

The PD itself focuses on teachers acquiring a thorough understanding of children’s mathematical concept development, including how to identify and correct misconceptions alongside how to identify each child’s stage of development to support children’s mathematical development and behaviour for learning.  As well as focusing on mathematics teaching itself we also have a focus on supporting effective behaviour for mathematical learning through both pedagogy and environment.

So, yes, the TEEMUP PD is compatible with a mastery approach.

The initial PD and subsequent individual mentoring is designed to support all schools, whether they are following a mastery approach, using a scheme like white rose or following their own pedagogy/methods.  Its research-based design includes information and ideas from NCETM, DREME (Stanford) and the Erikson Maths Institute alongside the methods of the successful FEEL study in which the TEEMUP research team were key players. 

The PD itself focuses on teachers acquiring a thorough understanding of children’s mathematical concept development, including how to identify and correct misconceptions alongside how to identify each child’s stage of development to support children’s mathematical development and behaviour for learning.  As well as focusing on mathematics teaching itself we also have a focus on supporting effective behaviour for mathematical learning through both pedagogy and environment.

So, yes, the TEEMUP PD is compatible with a mastery approach.

The ideal situation for the study is that both the YR and Y1 teacher remain in the same classroom for the full two years of the study.  However, there are circumstances where a staff change may be planned and schools can still be eligible. We also accept that there may be future circumstances beyond a school's control that would lead to a change of staff (such as staff turnover or illness).

If a staff change is planned before January 2022 (when the PD for intervention schools starts), this would be acceptable.

Alternatively, if a change of staff is planned (for example, due to maternity cover or as part of wider CPD or as part of school policy) and the replacement member of staff is already at the school, then it would be acceptable if this member of staff also attended the PD as the third (optional) participant from the school.  That way, we would be able to ensure that the class continue to benefit from the TEEMUP PD throughout the study period.

Finally, as the main focus of the study is the class that moves from YR to Y1, if the YR teacher changes in the second year of the study (2022-23), this may also be acceptable.

There may be other such circumstances where we would consider your application - if you are unsure, we would encourage you to complete the online Expression of Interest and add a note to describe your particular situation in the final comments section.