Professor Jennifer Field

Jennifer Field is a Professor of Primary Mathematics Education at the University of Greenwich. Jennifer is passionate about changing attitudes towards mathematics and educating teachers to see it as a rich, creative subject. She has an excellent reputation for inspirational pedagogical approaches which have improved teaching in the primary classroom both locally and nationally over the past 3 decades. For 15 years she worked as a primary school teacher in several Bexley schools, becoming Head of Year in a four-form entry school, as well as mathematics coordinator. She was one of the first national 'Leading Mathematics Teachers', providing demonstration lessons for over 100 Bexley teachers over 5 years, as well as supporting the Local Authority Numeracy Consultant, leading training sessions for coordinators across the borough. Ofsted graded her teaching as 'outstanding'. Jenny joined the University as a Senior Lecturer in the Primary department in 2002. In 2005 she became Curriculum Lead for Primary Mathematics on the BA and PGCE programmes. She was promoted to Principal Lecturer and University of Greenwich Teaching Fellow in 2012 and achieved the SHEA Fellowship in 2015. Impact of work Jenny played a key part in forming a South East England Consortium, successfully bidding to lead the Mathematics Specialist Teacher Programme (MaST). This was a government-led national programme, and she worked with three universities and five local authorities, training MaST teachers in over 70 schools and co-authored a book to support training. She now works with her alumni of Specialists, who, under her guidance, mentor the next generation of primary maths specialists. She leads Primary Mathematics Subject Specialist Provision in Initial Teacher Training and External CPD Provision for post-qualified teachers. She is an NCETM Accredited Lead Provider, and through her work with Teaching Alliances and National Maths Hubs, she leads innovative developments in primary mathematics within her university, and at local, regional and national levels. Plans for the future Jenny is researching South East Asian approaches to teaching mathematics, and how they could influence UK practice. She is also publishing in this area. She was involved in the National Shanghai Exchange Programme (2015) and 2017 is focusing on promoting policy change in UK approaches to learning times tables and multiplicative reasoning within a mastery curriculum.