The Margaret and John Kalman Charitable Trust offer Teacher Excellence Prizes and Fellowships each year to mathematics teachers.
This year for the first time primary and intermediate teachers were considered the Kalman Awards
The winners of 2021 Kalaman awards
Secondary (3 prizes of $5,000)
Ritesh Kumar, Henderson High School
Graeme Holden, Selwyn College
Anzar Chida, Mt Roskill Grammar
Intermediate (2 prizes of $2,500)
Christina England and Karina Starrs, Northcross Intermediate School (Joint application) for running Mathex style competitions for North Shore Schools.
Anika Potgieter, Albany Junior High School, for improving students confidence in mathematics through setting up a programme to accelerate learning in maths for students at all levels of learning.
Primary (4 prizes of $2,500)
Paul Crowhurst, Papatoetoe Primary School, for implementing a STEM Integrated Mathematics approach to the learning of Mathematics. This approach focuses on teaching mathematics concepts within a science and technology content with the aim of increasing enjoyment and motivation in mathematics learning by integrating the subject with other curriculum areas.
Adele Croucher, Freemans Bay School. Adele received the award for her efforts in engaging her local community to raise maths confidence and achievement levels, eg. Family Maths Challenge, Maths Open Mornings, Maths Resourcing Parties, Teacher PD sessions.
Amber Hobbs, Long Bay Primary School, for focussing on encouraging a classroom environment where children are prepared to take risks, by ‘celebrating mistakes as an opportunity for our brains to grow’. Her Maths programme is built around a cycle alternating between solving open end problems and skills workshops. She believes it is important to foster a growth mindset in her students in order to improve their learning of mathematics.
Suzannah Woods, St Dominic’s Catholic Primary School, for showing leadership in mathematics and statistics. She has created a series of maths problem solving tasks that are responsive to student’s cultures, interests and needs. She helped create a peer observation programme “ Teachers Learning from Teachers” which received very positive feedback. This initiative also included Maths Thinking Groups, and encouraged teachers to see their own personal goals in Mathematics.
