Advice for a TA wanting to specialise in maths

[EvangelicalAboutButteredToast]

I’m not a teacher and don’t want to be. I’m a general TA who tends to specialise in maths but would like to broaden my knowledge across all year groups.

School are great at offering extra professional training, so it’s definitely something I could talk to them about. From a personal POV though, if I wanted to pursuit this myself what sort of qualification might I be looking at? If any.

The OU has a "maths and its learning" degree. It's probably more than you want, but you can study individual modules, although the advantage of registering for the degree is that you may be eligible for a student loan.

I would advise that you specialise in dyscalculia. If you become a specialist in that then it will inform all your maths teaching and you will be worth your weight in gold. You can then privately tutor.

Interesting!

I am a maths teacher and hopefully this is already the case, but make sure you are good at maths!

This might sound ridiculous , but some of the TAs who label themselves as maths specialist are so poor at maths it makes a mockery out of the title.

Absolutely. If you don’t have a good grade at GCSE and A level in maths, I’d start there before thinking about OU.

It’s primary marhs, so I’m certainly proficient yes. Could I be better? Yes I think so, hence the post.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast start with what qualifications you currently have. What’s your GCSE maths grade? Do you have maths A level? Do you have a degree?

I’d then talk to the head teacher about the needs of the school and the courses available. We don’t have subject TAs (or even class TAs) as all of ours are now assigned to pupils with SEN. This means that our head would be unlikely to fund eg a maths/English course but would be keen to fund something on ASD/ADHD. This will be very school-specific.

I’d be funding any courses myself, so I don’t need to discuss anything with the head. I’ll have a little look around and see what’s out there.

Thanks very much 👍

Maybe you could practice some of the 11+ papers (maths part of them) and see how you do? As that will be the upper end of understanding for the primary age group?

Look into your local maths hub as they offer great CPD opportunities. They have one specific for TAs too.

As a parent (with a maths degree) I would ideally want you:
. to be confident in the maths syllabus up to at least the end of KS3 / Foundation level GCSE, including basic algebra, excluding trig.
. to be solid on BODMAS
. to understand various different methods for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (not just the ones 'approved' by your school or the government). havign a method the child can understand and apply is important.
. to know your times tables
. to know the correct definition of a prime number
. to be able to use objects to assist in maths understanding
. to be able to break down steps into teeny tiny ones (for the less able) or extend a bit (for the more able)

What I don't want is incorrect info which confuses my child such as telling them to do 5+2×8 left to right, or that 1 is prime, or 2 isn't prime.

The Open University is open access, in that you don't have to have done GCSEs and A-levels to study with them. That means that the first maths module does actually go back to scratch, assuming little other than basic arithmetic. (Those with A-level can skip this one.) Some people working in education find it quite a helpful module anyway, even if they're familiar with everything in it, as it gives them a chance to see how the material can be taught. There's also quite an emphasis on communication - at GCSE it's often enough to be able to get the right answer, but for teaching you want to know the best way to write it and the right words to use to describe what you're doing.

So you don't need to do GCSE/A-level before OU. If you need a GCSE for the bit of paper, that first OU module would be useful preparation.