On Thursday last week, I wrote a new Blog, #MasteryFail, as an appetiser for a speech I will giving at #MathsConf8 this coming Saturday. I used the blog to highlight my long term support for a mastery model for schooling.  At #MathsConf8, I will discuss the origins of a mastery approach and the weight of evidence to support its efficacy.  I have been speaking and writing about mastery for decades now and find it heartening that this way of operating teaching in schools is having a new renaissance.  Following my speech at the conference, I will release a new blog, Teaching for Mastery, in which I go into great detail about what it is, how it can be implemented and why, if embedded properly, the impact can be incredible.

Unfortunately, as with pretty much all education approaches, the renaissance of mastery has also brought with it much confusion.  So, #MasteryFail was a blog targeted at debunking some of the myths that are flying around at the moment.  If mastery is to have impact in England's schools, then stamping out poor practice early is going to be all important.  I did not expect the blog to be in any way controversial.

I was rather surprised, therefore, to find myself and my company being attacked in public through Tweets from one of the 35 Maths Hubs.

I have such a privileged life, I get to visit schools all around the world and see maths teaching at its very best. I am able to spend time both researching mathematics education and reading the best contemporary evidence as well as well established and proven approaches to pedagogy and subject knowledge.

For decades, I have dedicated all of my time to working to improve education. It is the very lifeblood of a mature civilization, it has the power to transform lives and bring meaning and joy to the world. Mathematics education sits at the top of my priority list – every day, I live and breathe it. My only professional goal in life is to make education better.

So, being able to visit schools and meet with teachers, being able to see experts in practice, being able to hear the stories of success and to witness the extremely nuanced behaviours and dispositions that lead to a mathematics concept being grasped by a child, is an honour.

Over recent months, as I have travelled around England visiting primary and secondary schools, I have repeatedly heard the same word being slapped onto various activities like a brand label. Mastery.

Yesterday evening, like every other Conservative Party Member, I received an email from Theresa May, outlining her plans to create a meritocratic Britain. A Britain that forces more universities and public schools to use their wealth and influence to aid improvements in State schools, a Britain that aims to give “our most academically gifted children the specialist and tailored support that can enable them to fulfil their potential”. I like the sound of that.

But also, a Britain that encourages the use of taxpayer money to increase the link between State and Church by encouraging the expansion of faith schools, “especially new Catholic schools”. A Britain that, yet again refuses to allow a school structure to have any time to settle by introducing the potential redesign of the entire landscape.

There are many things in education, which seem taboo to discuss, of great importance when considering how to realistically improve the quality of classroom practice.

The most effective teachers are those with highly developed, subject specific pedagogical and didactical knowledge and skills, combined with excellent subject content knowledge.

This morning, The Guardian published a piece by Schools Minister, Nick Gibb (the full text can be found here), which seeks to shut down debate by calling those who argue with the central assertion, racist.

Of course, the words are carefully chosen to avoid such a harsh word, but Nick writes ‘Those who try to dismiss their methods using crude national stereotypes’ and accuses anyone who demurs of ‘narrow-mindedness’.

I have long known that the answer to improving an education system is to fill it with teachers who are determined to never stop learning. Teachers who are intellects, who question and challenge, teachers who do not accept the words of fools and instead insist on an evidence informed approach to classroom practice.

The children in our schools today will face a world unknown to us. The careers they will follow, the lives they will lead, and the decisions they will take can’t possibly be imagined.

Schools must prepare children for this new, unimaginable world. We need to ensure our education system is reformed so that it is equipping our children for the future they will face, not the futures that we faced.

Ok, apologies for the self-congratulatory tone of this blog, but I'm really rather proud of Emaths.

In February 2004, I was giving a speech to a conference of teachers. There I was pontificating on the benefits of collaboration: how we, the 350,000 maths teachers in England are stronger together. That if we could network and share resources and ideas, the system really could improve. I talked about the need for a one-stop-shop, a place where any teacher could add their resources and find support materials.

As the speech went on in my usual evangelical manner, a delegate stood up in yelled – and I mean really yelled – at me "why don't you just do something about it?"

Just a random stream of thoughts as I sit in a cold railway station trying to get home...

2015 is the year that Marty McFly arrives in a future of hoverboards, self-drying jackets and pizzas that come as tiny dried tablets.

Robert Zemeckis is a clever chap. When writing the Back to the Future movies, he chose the years 1955, 1985 and 2015. This is not just on the off chance.

A thirty year gap does of course play right for the intergenerational conundrums which befall the hapless McFly family, but thirty years is important for a more important reason. To sell movies (and boy, did that franchise sell), the writer needs to tap into something in an audience – a familiarity, a connection, an emotion. Setting the first movie in 1985 and 1955 is so easy because, effectively, they are the same year.

I am increasingly concerned of late that the profession seems utterly oblivious to the fact that we are sleepwalking into becoming unthinking drones. Rather than trusting the profession and those who know a great deal about teaching and learning in mathematics, the DfE, and particularly Nick Gibb, are determined to implement their own vision of mathematics education. Teachers seem beaten, seem tired or (so much worse) seem to capitulate because they think Nanny knows best.

Here's a thought: wouldn't it be nice if each head teacher was brighter and more enlightened than their deputy, each deputy more so than their assistants, each assistant than each head of department, and each head of department worthy of respect by each teacher they lead.

Words were repeated time and time again as though deviation from the script was forbidden – perhaps Big Brother was listening. 'Progress', 'Plenary', 'Inquiry', 'Fun', 'Outstanding', 'Kinesthetic'... and on and on it went. I could have played National Strategies Bullshit Bingo and got a Full House every time.

A couple of decades ago, I found myself standing at a bar in a downtrodden pub on the outskirts of Derry, Northern Ireland. There had been no Good Friday Agreement and the Troubles were still very much alive and real. Not a great place for an Englishman to be whiling away the hours, but the friend I had agreed to meet and who lived locally had failed to show. So there I was, supping a jar, minding my own business.

A hand fell on my shoulder and a voice from behind asked "are you Catholic?"

The past 15 years or so have convinced me more and more that discovering learning through classroom observation is incredibly difficult and nuanced. I am a mathematics specialist, but have inspected lessons of all subjects. My first ever inspection was a PE lesson – the kids were trampolining. All jolly good fun, but I didn’t have a clue whether or not the 12 year olds were bouncing at a height and with an aplomb suitable to their age.