The 'Head of Department' DiplomaAuthor(s): Michael CorneliusSource: Mathematics in School, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Sep., 1986), pp. 33-34Published by: The Mathematical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30214110 .

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The

'HEAD OF DEPARTMENT'

Diploma Michael Cornelius, University of Durham

The Association's "Diploma in the Management of Math- ematics Departments in Secondary Schools" was estab- lished in 1983. It is intended for Heads of Mathematics Departments (or aspiring Heads of Department).

Institutions wishing to run courses put forward their own proposals which must satisfy broad guidelines laid down by the Association's Diploma Board. All students must be qualified teachers with at least five years' experience and should either be Heads of Department or recognised as having management potential. Courses involve at least 200 hours contact time and have an overall minimum length of 12 months.

The aim of a course is to create a working group of senior mathematics teachers who are aware of the demands of management and who it is hoped will show:

(i) an increase in the confidence to use, generate and communicate mathematics amongst specialist and non-specialist colleagues;

(ii) awareness of how this confidence can continue to be developed in themselves and in those for whom they are responsible, members of their departments as well as students/pupils;

(iii) insight into ways of satisfying the complex de- mands of developing and managing the mathema- tics in a secondary school.

Courses consist of three major components:

Management The Curriculum Mathematics

usually (in terms of time allocation) in the ratio 5:3:2 respectively. The Management section deals with management styles and management skills as applied to the curriculum, to pupils, to the staff in a department, to physical resources and to agencies external to the department. The Curriculum section considers aims/objectives, roles of mathematics, research, mathematics in primary schools and secondary schools, problems of transfer of pupils, assessment and evaluation and accountability. The Mathematics section aims to provide students with the opportunity to reinforce and refresh their own ex- perience of learning mathematics. A teacher on a course may do this in a variety of ways e.g. by studying a topic new to them or by undertaking an investigation or by examining the historical development of a branch of mathematics.

There are many possible patterns of course attendance including models involving weekly blocks at various stages in the year, one day per week with perhaps some longer blocks of time and courses with both some evening work and some day release from school.

Mathematics in School, September 1986 33

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A Course in Action

(This section is based on notes made by the late Bryan Lang who taught at Essex Institute of Higher Education and was a founder member of the Diploma Board.)

13 students enrolled for the course, 12 men and 1 woman. 9 were from comprehensive schools and 4 from middle schools. The group engaged in most forms of course activity from individual work, through pairs, fours and sixes to all thirteen in discussion, seminar, role play and simulation exercises, to visits to each others schools and formal lecture sessions. The main focal point for assessment was an "action project" in which a Head of Department decided on a proposal for some area of development in his/her school and then worked at this keeping a log of all decisions made, strategies adopted, successes and failures and finally in the light of the experience, a reflection which included inputs from the course and from reading and any other catalysts. Among the projects undertaken by the course members were: - negotiating the planning and equipping of a mathema-

tics suite; - developing a "mathematics across the curriculum"

policy for a school; - developing a curriculum for low attainers in mathema-

tics within the school; - developing an assessment course profiling policy for the

mathematics department. In the area of mathematics students were expected to

make highly personalised contributions which involved reading, under the guidance of a tutor, some topic in mathematics. Because of the wide variety of backgrounds of course members topics varied from calculus at just beyond 'A' level through many applications of mathematics to themes such as Games Theory and the Theory of Relativ- ity. In general there was a tendency to spend much time outside formal contact on this aspect of the course.

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It is not easy to judge the success of the course - the full value will be apparent only in about five years time - but people certainly had their horizons widened, accepted the need for improvement in their schools and for improvement in their own knowledge.

The Present and the Future

At present there are only four courses running. They are at:

Essex Institute of Higher Education (formerly Chelmer),

West Sussex Institute of Higher Education, Brunel University, Thames Polytechnic (formerly Avery Hill).

A new course of one term full-time study plus two terms part-time study is being planned at the Faculty of Education, Birmingham Polytechnic. It is hoped to commence this course in the Summer term of 1987.

Although the number of courses is small, a significant impact does seem to have been made in the areas where they have been held. The Association would welcome course proposals from other institutions and the Association's editors would welcome contributions from course members describing experiences of courses or pieces of work under- taken as part of a Diploma. Any reader wishing to obtain more detailed information about the Diploma should write to the Diploma Secretary at the Leicester office, or to one of the course Directors.

Essex Institute of Higher Education West Essex Institute of Higher Education Brunel University Thames Polytechnic

The following students have successfully completed the Diploma.

Essex Institute of Higher Education Charles Bartram

Peter Bouchard

Norman Cox

P. H. Frost

James Hind

R. A. Hooper J. B. Howarth

D. R. Johnson H. Munt

A. J. Parkinson

R. G. F. Taylor

West Sussex Institute of Higher Education Brian Burt

Penelope Johnson Patricia Notter Ronald Taylor Michael Watson

Thames Polytechnic Bashir Ahmad

James Aitchison

David Blackwell

Andrew Creedy

Ann Farnham

Joan Glastonbury

Geoffrey Haddow

Marcus James

Eileen Leatt

Marylynne Lolley

Radhakrishnamah Peruhal Naidoo

Joan Perry

Ralph Tebbutt

Hazel Thorn

Margaret Turner Michael Wadhams

34 Mathematics in School, September 1986

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