Introducing Carol Spencer

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Greetings fellow mathematicians!

I just thought i'd introduce myself. I'm Carol Spencer and I'm the creator of all of the K-6 Maths Teaching Resources at A Learning Place A Teaching Place (alearningplace.com.au).

So what gives me the expertise to create these research-based and curriculum based resources?

I am a primary school teacher and in 2001 I was promoted to a new school as Assistant Principal. When I arrived at the school I found out that the Assistant Principal role was off class and I had never wanted to be off class! I thought that's ok I'll be able to get into my teachers' classrooms and will be able to teach shoulder-to-shoulder - it was going to be a wonderful experience! But I ended up doing all of the duties that the off class admin person has to do.

Then I found out that the Board of Studies (which is what NESA in New South Wales used to be called) was writing a new New South Wales Maths Syllabus and that they were calling for writers. I had done some writing before for the Department of Education so I sent them an email.

I arrived at school on the Monday and my boss said to me, 'the Board of Studies wants you to go in and be part of the writing team for the New South Wales Maths Syllabus!'. He released me immediately, and I spent a term in there, working with the amazing Dr Judy Anderson.

For those of you who remember, the 2001 Maths Syllabus was a complete rewrite and was nothing like the 1989 blue and white syllabus.

I soon found out I was the only teacher writing during term time! I had lots of discussions with Dr Judy Anderson and soon found that the way that I understood maths and had always taught maths was exactly the way that the new syllabus and current learning research showed was the most effective way to teach maths.

To cut a long story short, I then ended up as maths consultant with the Department of Education in New South Wales for 4 years, before setting up my own consultancy when I could see the writing on the wall that the department was reducing regions and state.

I sent out some emails to schools that I use to consult to as a consultant with a Department of Education offering my services, and within a couple of hours I was completely booked for the rest of the year!
I was implementing in-class demonstration lessons and working off-class and out-of-school hours with teachers - always basing what I was doing on current learning research and on syllabus and curriculum.

Teachers began to say, 'I wish I had a video of that!', 'I wish I had that as a teaching plan!', and so I started creating resources.

Cut to 12 years later and we have the website A Learning Place A Teaching Place.

I've been in schools most days every week for the last 12 years as I've been developing these resources, so they are not only research and curriculum-based they are tried and tested!

Any questions, please contact us at [email protected]

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