Alison Borthwick

Alison is currently the strategic mathematics adviser for a group of schools in the UK and a part time freelance mathematics consultant. She has worked extensively in many schools and countries with teachers (of all phases), teacher educators and researchers.
She is the current chair of the Primary ATM and MA group and a member of the Primary Contact Group for the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (Royal Society).she is also a member of the KS2 Expert Panel with the Standards and Teaching Agency, the Early Childhood Mathematics Group, the British Society for Research into the Learning of Mathematics and a Governor of a local Infant school.

Areas of interests:

• Children’s Thinking and Reasoning
• Primary STEM
• Perceptions of, and Attitudes towards Mathematics
• Supporting fluency through number sense and spatial thinking
• Rich tasks and task design
• Learning mathematics through problem solving

Publications

• Reasons to Reason across Primary Maths and Science (Sage, 2018)
• Curious Learners in Primary Maths, Science, Computing and DT (Sage, 2016)
• Connecting Primary Maths and Science (Open University Press, 2016

Freelance Consultanting:

Alison has been involved as a freelance consultant since 1995 and have provided training on both a National and International platform.

University of Cambridge

Lecturer and tutor on the Primary mathematics PGCE programme – this training consisted of delivering lectures to 180 students as well as workshops to groups of 30. The training focused on both subject knowledge and pedagogical issues, such as teaching and learning styles, differentiation and assessment. Marker of mathematics assignments to masters level|

University of East Anglia

Guest lecturer on the Primary mathematics PGCE programme – this training focused on the use of models and images in mathematics. The format of the training was a workshop which was delivered to 30 students at a time. The workshop was then repeated 3 times over two days to different groups. Marker of mathematics assignments to masters level

BEAM

Inset training provided for BEAM courses and school based inset – this training has ranged from courses that teachers have attended to bespoke sessions designed and tailored to individual school needs. Out of the courses run I have repeated ones on assessment, planning and using books and films, in response to positive evaluations and demand.

Billericay Education Consortium

• Second marker of mathematics assignments Institute of Education, London
• Inset training provided on AfL and APP
• Chartered Assessor

Cambridge International Examinations

Inset training provided to Egyptian teachers in Cairo – this training formed the middle part of a series of sessions and focused predominantly on formative and summative assessment.

Bahrain Numeracy Strategy

As part of a team of writers I have written a series of units which will form the new Bahrain Numeracy Strategy.

Governor

She is a governor at Chapel Break Infants School in Norwich – a position she held since 2001. During this time she had the privilege to be both vice chair and acting chair – each time supported by a dedicated team of governors and school staff. In 2010 the school was inspected by Ofsted – the second time since she joined the governing body – and was again awarded outstanding! The report is included below.

She held various roles and responsibilities during my time with the school but she is currently responsible for the monitoring of mathematics, assessment and creativity – the latter for which the school is a leading light in.she is also the chair of the Teaching and Learning committee.