2011 Participant, Tom Lee, shares his experiences setting up the Coventry Maths Club with others from the Teach First community.

Abandoned Dropboxes and confused, half-hearted conversations were all too common a feature of the early attempts we made in the Christmas term. A few of us placed in schools in Coventry resolved to try a fresh approach…  cue the inaugural meeting of ‘Coventry Maths Club’ (CMC), staged at a Starbucks snuck away in the wake of the Ricoh arena - a modest first setting for what has become an invaluable teaching community. Escaping from a dark and frosty February evening was a welcome respite, but it was also a great opportunity to share solutions that had eased the challenge of inspiring Coventry's youth.

It’s amazing what one meeting can trigger – somehow starting a half term on the same page meant that joint planning appeared less daunting than before. More importantly we had a sense of each other’s strengths, which served to generate some much-needed efficiency. The meeting that followed had more momentum, and we were already discussing larger scale projects. As a result three of us arranged an aspirational trip to Cambridge University with our KS3 gifted and talented (G&T) maths students – both school’s pupils combined made the trip much more exciting and significantly strengthened the links between our two schools.

More recently, projects have included a Continuing Professional Development trip to the University of Manchester whilst the first wheels of a G&T trip to Disneyland, Paris are already in motion. Most intriguing has been the range of different ideas that have been generated from that first informal meeting – the reach of CMC has already moved far beyond the classroom, once more affirming the exciting potential of getting people together with a common agenda.

For a first year in session we have an already impressive catalogue of achievements, the challenge is now to recruit more to the fold!

To find out more and get involved, contact Tom