Setting Up and Running an ATM Branch
Local branches of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics provide the opportunity for professionals to share ideas and experiences in their own area.
Why Have Local ATM Branches?
The key point is, why should anyone want to be a member of the ATM? What are they going to get out of it?
Benefits of membership of a local group:
- Offers the opportunity to meet teachers from other schools who are dealing with the same issues as you
- It can provide an interface between different phases of Education - primary/ secondary/ tertiary
- It offers the opportunity to find out about new ideas by inviting speakers who are expert in their field to talk to the group
- It offers the opportunity to revisit old ideas but take a fresh look at them.
- It establishes a connection between the national ATM and teachers in a locality.
Meeting Formats
Branches are encouraged to meet a regular times during the year. The best times would appear to be
- early October
- late November
- late January
- late March
- late June
Clearly, the aim is to find times when teachers are likely to feel free enough to come to a meeting about mathematics teaching.
Different branches find that different times of meetings work for them:
- early evening:16:30-18:30
- late evening: 18:00-20:00
- weekends: 10:00-12:30
- day conferences (ambitious)
Which times you choose would be as you thought best, although you might try out different times to see how they work.
Meetings can take a number of different formats and focuses limited only by your imagination. A few suggestions might are listed here.
ATM Materials
The ATM produces a whole range of teaching materials. An interesting meeting can be to look at one or a few publications and explore how these might be used to support teaching particular aspects of mathematics.
School-Based
Here a meeting can be held at a school where an approach to teaching an aspect of mathematics can be looked at. This kind of meeting can involve some pupils demonstrating some mathematics they have encountered. Quite often parents would like to come in and see what their children have done in school. It also provides the opportunity to have a look at how some colleagues in other schools have addressed teaching mathematics and what their pupils have achieved.
Invited Speaker
It is always interesting to listen to someone describe some detailed project in which they have been involved. People who have run sessions at the ATM Conference might be willing to run their session again for a local group. People who work in Higher Education will quite often have an area of interest or expertise which they would be willing to talk about to a local group. The ATM have a list of people who have said they are willing to run a session for local branches so you could contact the office for this information.
Conference Issue
If one or more people from the Branch attend the Easter Annual conference then they can bring back the ideas and activities which most interested them while they were there. (But also see above)
Project
A meeting could look at planning a project which might be trialled across a number of schools and a number of different age groups. For example the new NC2000 suggests that handling data (i.e. probability and statistics) should be taught as part of a modelling process. This suggests that pupils might be engaged in a longish project which includes selecting an appropriate question; identifying data sources; collecting appropriate data; analysing the data and then making inferences to address the original question. There is a possibility for a large number of projects and planning for these could take place at an ATM Branch meeting where many heads' could think up some interesting ideas.
Topical
The changes in educational policy seems to occur so rapidly that sometimes there is not the time to work through it systematically. An ATM Branch meeting could look at some recent policy and subject it to some intense critique. For example, the Numeracy Strategy - what do we think about it? Calculators, should they be used in class? Investigatory approaches - should we use them in our teaching? AS level - is it working for you and your pupils? And so on. This meeting might simply form a discussion and a report listing the outcome of the discussion could be circulated to other local schools.
Activity
A meeting might be formulated around engaging in a single activity for example: following a maths trail, developing ICT activities for use with pupils, a critical investigation of maths websites, looking at maths and textiles or art or paper folding and so on. Meetings like this can be constructive, creative and lead to developments which might end up being brought to conference or written up for Mathematics Teaching.
Branch Organisation
Committee
Running a branch can be quite time consuming and it is best to share out as many jobs as possible. Each Branch has to have a Secretary and a Treasurer. The Secretary is concerned with communications with National ATM and keeps a general overview on the running of the Branch. The Treasurer is responsible for the money.
Bank Account
The Branch will need some funds for
- printing
- postage
- room hire
- tea and coffee (and chocolate biscuits!)
- travel expenses for visiting speakers
The money needs to be kept in a dedicated account so that all transactions are transparent to the membership. The Treasurer is required to make a financial report to the National ATM once a year.
Money can be gained from a membership fee - £5.00 would seem a reasonable amount to start with, and for charging for meetings. Normally fees for meetings are set to cover the cost of hiring the premises and paying the expenses of speakers, technicians and so on. Members are usually given a significant discount, but the gap between members and non-members rates might not be the equivalent to a full year's subscription.
Membership
It is very important to encourage and maintain the membership. It would be a good sized job for one person, although two might be even better. Members need to be contacted regularly and encouraged to attend meetings. If they cannot attend then they should get some report or feedback given the main points which arose at the meeting. Members need to feel both included and missing out if they have not attended a meeting. You can download a membership template here [RTF format 77k].
Mailing List
To encourage as many teachers as possible to attend meetings then schools will need to be informed about the meetings. You will need to set up a database with as many details as possible about the local schools who you will invite to your meetings. Where you know the name of the head of department or maths post-holder then use their name in your mailings. Set up a database of members so that you can print out labels of addressed envelopes and post notices and reports to them.
Format for Fliers
It is very useful to have a standard style for your leaflets and fliers and then just drop the details of a meeting into the template. We hope that some templates will be available on the ATM website (www.atm.org.uk) for you to download and use. If people recognise the format they will recognise the information is coming from the local ATM and then, hopefully, read the leaflet and respond.
The leaflet has to include all the relevant details of the meetings including:
- place
- time
- duration
- topic
- cost
- whether refreshments are available
and them some punchy prose describing what the session is about and why they ought to attend it.
Download these flier templates for the inside and outside of leaflet. They are available as RTF files which will load into most DTP applications at the moment.
Internet Presence on ATM Branches Pages
As the Internet becomes used by more and more people it is convenient for them to be able to find out the details of the local meeting by looking it up on the Internet. However, maintaining a website can be very time consuming and is ultimately quite a skilled job. The national ATM has an excellent website with pages specially reserved for local branches. This means you can email the details of your meeting to the Web Editor and have the details uploaded onto the website for you. Visit the branches page to see what other branches have done.
Book Sales
The ATM produces a wide range of very good publications. A selection may be held by branches on a sale or return basis. Publications may be chosen to support the topic of the meeting. So, if you were looking at the use of questioning as a teaching approach, for example, it might be useful to have some copies of Ann Watson's and John Mason's book Questions and Prompts for Mathematical Thinking so that anyone who was interested could follow up the session. Any sales will yield a small profit for the Branch.
Planning a Meeting
When planning a meeting you might like to consider this timetable:
- Topics for meetings
Choose some likely topics for meetings and the time of year which seems best to deal with them. For example topical meetings might have to be sooner than a meeting which looks at the finer points of adding fractions. - Format of meeting
Decide on the format of the meeting. Will it require inviting a speaker, obtaining some specialist equipment, having access to ICT and so on. - Confirming guests' availability and dates
Contact any speakers or people who will run the session and agree the date and time that they can do. - Where will the meeting be held?
Confirm the site where the meeting is to be held:- Is there a charge for hiring a hall or some rooms?
- Does a premises officer need to be paid while you are there?
- If you have access to ICT arrange for a technician to be on hand and agree a fee for this
- Publicising the meeting
Letting people know about the meeting is clearly vital. There are a number of steps to creating good publicity and experimentation over a period of time will allow you to develop a feel for what works. The steps to setting up you publicity might be as follows:- Create a mailing list. If you want to contact all schools in your area then ask the local education authority, or the local maths adviser whether they will help.
- Agree the wording for the publicity. How are you going to describe the session and ‘sell’ it to other teachers.
The Role of the National ATM
Professional Officer
The Professional Officer is always available to offer help and advice. You can contact him by phone on 01332 364599 or by email on professionalofficer@atm.org.uk. Contact the ATM office (01332 346599) or email Branches Administrator who will be able to help you make contact with him.
Database of ATM Members
If you want to get in contact with all the other national ATM members in your area the ATM office will be able to give you this information.
Address Labels
When you are ready to send out your first fliers, the ATM office will provide you with a set of gummed address labels for the ATM members in your area.
Reports of Activities
Please keep ATM informed of what you are doing through the Professional Officer. Copies of fliers should be sent to the ATM office and the website must be used to advertise your meeting and then to carry a report of the meeting.
Funding
Initial grants of £75 are available from ATM to help you set up a new branch. You may request additional funding of up to £50 per year.
AGM and Report
Each branch should hold an AGM, in which a report of activities, a financial statement and appointment of officers are agreed. After the AGM a full report should be sent to the Branches Administrator, so that the information can be presented at the AGM of the national ATM at the Easter conference. This report is needed by 31 Jan each year.
ATM Branches
Web Ed’s Weblog
