My biggest struggles as a Numeracy Leader

This week I wanted to share three things I really struggled with when I was in the role of Numeracy Leader.

I would love to know if you struggle with them too…

1. A lack of guidance in Numeracy Leadership: I felt like I didn’t really have anyone to ask specific Numeracy questions to, or support me in developing my leadership skills. I felt like I was the Numeracy ‘go-to’ for the staff but I didn’t have a Numeracy ‘go-to’.
2. Attending PD that didn’t really suit my needs: Like exercise, I found attending PD provided me with ‘diminishing returns’. When I started attending PD (or starting a fitness kick) I improved rapidly and learnt so much. But before I knew it, I was attending PDs and would be lucky to learn 3 or 4 new things. Now don’t get me wrong, hearing things repeatedly is useful to consolidate knowledge, but it frustrated me because I wanted to keep learning at my point of need. I found very little PD specific to numeracy leadership. It was mostly Numeracy teaching or General Leadership.
3. Time spent re-inventing the wheel: I felt like I spent a LOT of time doing things that other numeracy leaders had done before me. Making PLT content, searching for resources, creating assessments etc. It frustrated me that I was spending time on things that were important, but could be created by one person rather than every Numeracy Leader in every school. After all we are all teaching the same content- I often thought “surely there must be an easier way!”.

In the years since I left my role as Numeracy Leader to have babies and complete my PhD… I have discovered that almost every Numeracy Leader can relate to my three struggles.

Seeing the same issues arise over and over again made me passionate about using my knowledge and experience to do something to help.

So, in 2020, when Victoria was in a hard lockdown and I was not able to do my usual face to face PD, I created my Numeracy Teachers Academy(NTA) to support Numeracy Leaders and teachers.

The NTA is a yearly online subscription that allows me to mentor Numeracy Leaders (and teachers).

The NTA is based around 3 pillars- yep you guessed it… the pillars come from the 3 problems I identified above.

Pillar One is all about providing high quality on-demand online PD differentiated to the needs of everyone from a Graduate to a Numeracy Leader.

Pillar Two is about mentoring- In the NTA I work closely with the members to develop their individual knowledge, skills and answer their specific school-based questions.

Pillar Three is about saving time- I don’t think it is productive for each of us to be creating content. I use my experience and knowledge to create content for schools to use.

The NTA is my passion. I love working closely with my members and helping them in their journey to become high quality teachers and leaders of Numeracy. The NTA provides EXACTLY the support I was desperate for when I was a Numeracy Leader.

If you are thinking- I want in!

That is great… except…I only open the NTA to enrolments twice a year (usually in May and October). The rest of the year I spend working with members.

If you would like to find out more...

The NTA is open from the 6th-15th of October 2021...The next intake will be in May 2022. Click here to read further!