100 teachers + one innovative programme = maths success

More than 100 mathematics teachers from state schools will come to Cambridge this week to learn about the best ways to engage their students in mathematics lessons. The Teacher Inspiration Day on 17 June is run by NRICH www.nrich.maths.org, part of the University of Cambridge's Millennium Mathematics Project, and will share good practice in teaching a subject which is vital for a huge variety of careers and academic studies. It is part of the innovative Fast Forward Mathematics programme which has been shown to have a positive impact on transforming the teaching of the subject. The programme has been sponsored for its first three years through a $1.2m donation from The Goldman Sachs Foundation. The Fast Forward programme, which is in its final year, targets both students and teachers. It includes three Teacher Inspiration Days a year and three residential study weeks for students. It was set up following a 2006 Ofsted report evaluating provision for 14-19 mathematics teaching which stated that almost half the schools in the UK were not teaching mathematics well, with mathematics lessons which lacked "sufficient flair, imagination and challenge to get the best from students".