23-10-2023
01:16
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Nicola Arkinstall’s show on Teacher Hug Radio shines a spotlight on those who are being celebrated in education.
This week she interviews Sam Cragg who won a Silver Pearson award and was shortlisted for TES New Teacher of the Year Award. He works at Malton School who have also won numerous awards.
I recently interviewed Sam Craggs, maths teacher at Malton School for my Teacher Hug Radio show ‘Spotlight’. ‘Spotlight’ shines a light on fantastic schools, teachers, teaching assistants and business leaders to celebrate what an amazing job they are doing in education. You can listen to the Malton School Episode of my show on Saturday 3rd July at 4 p.m. on Teacher Hug Radio.
Malton School has won best Maths Team of the Year in the TES Awards. Sam Craggs has won a Silver Pearson award and was shortlisted for a TES New Teacher of the Year Award. Their Headteacher, Rob Williams has also won the Pearson Headteacher of the Year award.
Sam Craggs
I really enjoyed talking to Sam and hear the enthusiasm of someone in the early years of their career. It was so great to hear about Sam’s attitude towards making a difference in his school and to the lives of the young people he teaches. Students at Malton know that if they have Sam teaching them they will receive a consistent and fair deal in class and also know that Sam will help deliver strong progress in lessons and over time.
Sam has spent lots of time outside of lessons developing his own pedagogy, attending lunchtime and afterschool TeachMeet sessions, contributing superbly at Faculty meetings as well as attending external training on Mastery teaching.
Teaching from an iPad was very new to Sam when he joined Malton but as a one to one iPad school, Sam quickly got to grips with the apps used in the department and some of the software the students use to improve the quality of his lessons and the overall experience the students get in his class. These iPad skills helped stand him in good stead for the issues COVID brought, moving around school more, teaching outside of Maths rooms, and crucially teaching Maths remotely from home.
Sam’s reflective nature has supported his development and he spends time working with more experienced teachers in the department to plan, create and resource lessons. He always evaluates ideas shared by more experienced staff in the department and will often adapt and use ideas to benefit his own teaching.
Sam contributes at Faculty meetings and he always offers great ideas and input when the Team discuss plans. Sam is a very popular member of the school staff team. He has helped run the Gardening Club after school and this has allowed him to meet students across all year groups. Sam has also taken on the role of mentoring PGCE students so he is already supporting others to develop their teaching practice.
Sam has lots of outstanding traits as a young teacher but it’s his care for his students that sits above all. He takes a real interest in each student and carefully considers before each lesson how he can get the best out of each of them, his students see this in him and they replicate this by working hard and showing the right attitude throughout his lessons. Sam has a fantastic rapport with the students that he works with and also the parents and carers of those students.
Maths Team
The maths team at Malton have won the TES maths team of the year award.
I also spoke to James Muir, Head of the maths team. The maths team won the award because the judges were impressed by the number of students taking A-level maths which has increased by more than 300%! One particular success has been the implementation of the Build a Mathematician programme in Key Stage 3 to help students develop a secure base of understanding. The maths team encourage a metacognitive approach so that the pupils know how to improve.
In an effort to improve the transition of students into Year 7, Head of Department James Muir and his team run a regional transition project in which they lead training for primary and secondary schools. This has helped support the professional development of a number of teachers in the local area. They also produce materials to support student progress.
Feedback
I really enjoyed talking to Sam and James and finding out all about Malton School and how the maths team is going from strength to strength.
I hope you enjoyed reading this Spotlight Blog. It has been great to be able to shine a light on Malton School’s good practice and learn from their experiences and ideas. If anything resonated with you from today’s blog please tweet me @ArkinstallNikki because I would love to engage with any comments you may have.
I would love to shine the Spotlight on You!
I would love to shine the spotlight on a different school in each episode of the show so if you would like your school to be featured please tweet us on @teacherhugradio, send an email to hello@teacherhug.co.uk or call on our free phone number – 0800 246 15 55 and leave me a message so that I can contact you.
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