Professional Development of South African Primary Mathematics Teachers: A Network of Multiple, Overlapping, Aligned Projects for Lifelong Learning

This chapter elaborates and reviews the professional development (PD) model of the South African Numeracy Chair Project (SANCP), Rhodes University from inception (2011) to date. The Chair’s development mandate is to run PD with local primary teachers of mathematics in partner schools. The PD model evolved in a grounded way over time, informed by teacher, parent, community, department and after-care centre personnel, and by the ongoing research of the project team. The model included teachers across all primary grades through four long-term (staggered, overlapping and aligned) programmes. Emergent student and parent focused projects (mathematics clubs, lesson mental starters and family maths) formed a rich network of mathematical activity that supported PD more broadly. A community of practice perspective of professional learning shapes the model, where all participants are learners in the joint enterprise of finding sustainable interventions to support primary mathematics education. A socio-constructivist perspective informs the design of key learner resources and activities. An ‘across grades’ community partnership-based approach informs the way we build networks of interventions. This is essentially a position paper built on the existing research findings published on the programmes. We argue that building a network of projects around (and interconnected with) PD programmes enables expanding teacher learning opportunities and trajectories beyond individual offerings, thus supporting sustainability. In sum we note that the ‘whole’ of the network is more than ‘the sum of the parts’ of individual programmes. We conclude with reflection on challenges and limitations of this model and implications for PD across Southern Africa.