Buckinghamshire teacher wins £10k prize for her innovation to help maths students

Maths teacher Jayne Webster, from Buckingham, and Caroline Peters, from Cheshire, have been awarded £10,089 from Let Teachers SHINE to develop their digital platform, Dynamic Representations.

Jayne is Lead Practitioner at Stantonbury School, Stantonbury, Milton Keynes.

The platform features interactive digital versions of familiar classroom tools – such as plastic blocks and rods, known as manipulatives – to help students visualise and understand maths concepts and show the deep connections between number and algebra.

Dynamic Representations will make topics such as algebra easier for learners to grasp because: “It gives learners the images that go with abstract concepts,” said Caroline.

“When pupils at secondary school first encounter algebra and the variable ‘x’ they struggle with it because it’s abstract – they’re not given the pictures they were at primary to explain what it is,” explained Jayne.

Through the use of digital “maths manipulatives”, Jayne and Caroline’s goal is to make maths less stressful, and more accessible and engaging for pupils.

To help overcome anxiety around the subject Jayne explained: “We’re using imagery that pupils are familiar with from primary school.”

“The visual nature of the Dynamic Representations tool keeps learners in the ‘zone of success’ for longer because it reduces their anxiety,” said Caroline.

“We see how Dynamic Representations help learners make sense of maths, increase their confidence and reduce misconceptions because they’ve got an image of what it is.”

Topics include understanding numbers and how we use them in the four basic operations – adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. Dynamic Representations also looks at how number patterns and structures help students move into algebra, where they learn to solve equations, work with things like standard form, explore number sequences, and use graphs.

Throughout, the same types of visual tools and models are used to link these ideas together, helping students see how everything connects and builds on each other.

Part of the project includes training for teachers as they can sometimes find it difficult to teach using manipulatives, because they were not taught that way themselves.

“Many teachers don’t know the deep structure behind manipulatives or how to scaffold the learning. We’ve run small courses to help teachers learn the language and how to use the tools flexibly,” explained Caroline.

Jayne and Caroline’s online resource will also include lesson plans, tutorials and interactive activities to make teaching and learning maths easier to navigate.

“The big plan is to get a connected and dynamic curriculum for mathematics, starting at primary and taking it all the way up to secondary,” said Jayne.

Both Jayne and Caroline are excited about receiving the Let Teachers SHINE grant and growing their project.

“We’d like to broaden our impact by training other teachers from schools within the North of England,” said Jayne.

“The SHINE award will allow us to develop resources and activities that teachers can use to model in the classroom and students can complete on their own devices, as well as supporting teachers from disadvantaged schools with physical resources so that the same concepts can be demonstrated offline, with downloadable resources for students to work on in class.”

The success of the project will be measured by its impact in the classroom and evaluated by teacher and pupil feedback.

“Receiving the award is such recognition and I’m driven to prove how it contributes to student outcomes – I fully believe in it,” said Caroline.

“We’re really excited to get started and see where we can go because we know how good it is,” added Jayne. “Having that support from SHINE to make this into something that can be used by teachers and students is just a dream.”

Run annually by the North of England education charity SHINE, the Let Teachers SHINE competition identifies and supports promising educational innovations.

In addition to funding, winners receive access to a comprehensive programme of development workshops and one-to-one support to help refine and scale their ideas.

Since the competition was first launched in 2012, SHINE has supported a wide range of impactful initiatives which have gone on to benefit millions of pupils nationwide. Previous success stories include Times Tables Rock Stars, Hegarty Maths, Vocabulous and Boromi.

Jayne’s project is one of nine winners to land a share of more than £175,00 this year.