We have used Izak9 to deliver leading practice maths training to many thousands of teachers in Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and in the UAE. This training is not simply on how to use Izak9, but how the use of Izak9 can change the landscape of how you teach mathematics in your classroom.

The techniques and strategies learned during these sessions can be applied to all aspects of teaching and learning. At present, in Ireland alone, we work with six teaching Universities – the students below are in the 4th year of teacher training at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick.

On what does Izak9 CPD focus?

Izak9 and its associated pedagogy creates an environment focused on the aims and skills of the maths curriculum, while using the content as a domain. Yes, teachers can use Izak9 to deliver maths topics in the areas of number, algebra, shape and space, measures and data handling, but over and above this, pupils are problem solving, thinking flexibly, gaining access to variety and depth, becoming more fluent, reasoning more with each other, building a positive relationship with mathematics and becoming more resilient.

Teachers are given unprecedented opportunities for formative assessment, effective questioning, differentiation, classroom management and much much more. This picture was taken in Our Lady’s Girls’ Primary School, Belfast. Principal Orla O’Dowd is deconstructing their group’s response to a problem solving/place value task.

What does a training session look like?

Teachers actively participate together in groups to solve the Izak9 tasks.  We are on hand to deliver anecdotal evidence and live deconstructions of children’s responses to the same tasks, based on having worked with more than 20,000 pupils over the past 3 years. Teachers get the chance to think about their own thinking and their own teaching and learning, whilst at the same time, are able to put themselves in the position and the minds of their students. See clip below from Greenrig Primary School in West Lothian, Scotland. These teachers are trying to build a wall from memory, having seen it for only 3 seconds, in exactly the same fashion as their students.

Is Izak9 relevant to our maths curriculum?

Izak9 CPD training is relevant to the aims and objectives of all maths curricula. We deliver training to schools in NI, ROI, Scotland, England and Wales. Also for example, the Education Minister of the UAE personally asked for Izak9 training to be delivered to Ministry maths teachers in Sharjah University, United Arab Emirates, following a meeting with him in Dubai.

You can see below how the shared learning environment and the presence of a substantial physical product, provides significant stimuli for much discussion, debate and celebration of success. These teachers were asked to work in groups on a problem solving task. Various approaches were used by the different groups – number strategies, patterns in number, trial and improvement, even averages and range!

How do teachers feel about the use of Izak9?

We first introduced Izak9 at Primary level. As it was designed as a Transition Device, to give play back to children aged 8/9 in an attempt to help them better engage with mathematics, the hope was that it would be quickly adopted by secondary schools to nurture them further, which has transpired to be the case.  We surveyed the Heads of Mathematics in the Belfast Post Primary Schools who are currently using Izak9. The responses can be viewed on our efficacy page.

The effective use of Izak9 presents a significant capacity for change. The resource provides an opportunity to teach to the aims and skills of your curriculum. It provides an active shared learning domain for pupils and a formative assessment rich environment for the teacher. This in itself, would be useless if teachers and pupils didn’t believe Izak9 could work for them or if they didn’t love using it, but they do!

This is what makes the difference.

If you are in a primary school, secondary or grammar school, an academy, an IB/PYP school, teaching University or involved with the delivery of the maths curriculum at Education Authority or Inspectorate level and would like to look at the potential of some Izak9 maths CPD Training or an introductory demonstration, please contact us anytime using the link below.

Izak9 CPD can also help in the delivery of specific project initiatives, for example: pupil transition and shared learning.

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