LEaDME: Leading Educators and Development in Mathematics Education

What is LEaDME?

LEaDME is about mathematics leadership activity in primary schools.

It is space which I use to share my knowledge, stories, and understanding of this important aspect of leadership in schools with people who have the responsibility of leading mathematics in schools. It is through this LEaDME site that I share my understandings of the ways that mathematics leaders influence and lead mathematics teaching and learning.

I dedicate this site to all of the maths leaders who are working in primary schools who direct their work to influence and make a difference in mathematics teaching and learning.

My interest in this area is founded in my own experiences as a numeracy coordinator, a School Advisor: Mathematics for the Catholic Education Office, Melbourne, and my current work as a mathematics educator (lecturer) at Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus).

I have been fortunate to work with many mathematics leaders during my career, listening to their challenges and worries, supporting them with their dilemmas, and celebrating many successes with them. This happened significantly through my work in the Contemporary Teaching and Learning of Mathematics (CTLM) project (2008-2012), my consultation work in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Canberra, and Queensland, and during the course of doctorate study. I have also had the privilege of working with maths leaders within my role as Director of the Mathematics Teaching and Learning Centre at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus.

My PhD research focused on what motivates School Mathematics Leaders in their professional learning leadership with classroom teachers, as well knowing more about what mediates the leadership activity of those mathematics leaders. Essentially, my research is about knowing more about drives the School Mathematics Leaders’ professional learning leadership (what they work on and why), as well as identifying what influences that leadership related to mathematics professional learning for teachers.

My view of mathematics leadership in primary schools

Like many who research in the area of educational leadership, I view leadership as activity and not necessarily as a particular role or person. I see the leadership of the mathematics curriculum in primary schools as activity that influences. It influences by focusing on developing and extending teacher dispositions, practices, and knowledge of and for mathematics education. It celebrates and extends high-quality mathematics teaching in classrooms. It is activity that influences learning outcomes for all students as a result of its focus on teacher learning. Mathematics leadership activity also develops greater parent and family knowledge and appreciation for mathematics, and it promotes mathematics as an important curriculum area and way of coming to know the world.

In this sense, any person within a school setting who enacts any activity that influences mathematical knowledge, practices, and dispositions could be deemed a leader of mathematics education in the school. Through my research, however, I have come to understand that the mathematics leader has the greatest opportunity of influencing learning and teaching in mathematics, and they enact this influence in particular ways.