This month: Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5

About NRICH: Meet the Team

Lynne McClure

Project Director

Lynne was appointed as project director in March 2010. She has worked with children and grown ups of all ages in a variety of different settings - in primary and secondary schools, in further education colleges and in universities, both here and abroad. Her first job was teaching maths in a comprehensive school in Oxfordshire and her favourite (until she joined NRICH, of course) was as head of a small primary school just outside Abingdon. Immediately before joining NRICH, Lynne lived in Scotland where she worked with beginning teachers at Edinburgh University, and led her own very successful consultancy into maths education which took her all over the world. She has written lots of articles and books and edits the Mathematical Association's Primary Mathematics journal. Her research focus is on what constitutes an appropriate curriculum for highly able mathematicians. Lynne became a member of ACME in 2009.

Lynne's aims for NRICH are to make sure that everyone knows what a fantastic free resource it is and to ensure that the high standards set by previous directors are maintained!

Liz Woodham

Primary Coordinator (on maternity leave from September 2011)

Liz graduated with a degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge and then enjoyed eight months living on an island in Lake Malawi attempting to teach English, Music and PE to local children. Following a PGCE, Liz was a primary school teacher in north London before joining the NRICH team. Her role as Primary Coordinator involves working as part of a team to develop primary-level materials for the website and to run associated teacher professional development. Liz is a member of the joint MA ATM primary subcommittee, is on ATM General Council and is a member of MA Council.

Jenni Back

Website Primary Coordinator (maternity cover)

Jenni Back has responsibility for the primary and early years elements of the website. She trained to teach mathematics at Homerton College before teaching in a variety of secondary and primary schools in England, Singapore and Riyadh. Her doctoral studies focused on teacher pupil talk in primary mathematics classrooms and she first joined in the NRICH team in 2001. After a break during which she trained primary school teachers, was involved in the RECME project and worked with the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching at Plymouth University, she is pleased to back with the team. She is passionate about developing tasks for students that are accessible to all and stimulate mathematical thinking and reasoning. Her research work has focused on the continuing professional development of teachers of mathematics and developing tasks and approaches that support this. Recently she has been exploring how Hungarian teachers induct young children into mathematical ways of working and how to use this research evidence to prompt teachers to examine their professional practice. Jenni is on the General Council of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics and is chair of the Association of Mathematics Education Teachers.

Jennie Pennant

PD Primary Coordinator (maternity cover)

Jennie has particular responsibility for the Professional Development element of the NRICH Primary work. She is passionate about empowering school professional learning communities to release their creativity, drive and vision to enable children to become successful learners of mathematics. Alongside her NRICH role Jennie is an independent mathematics leadership coach and consultant, having been the Professional Development Manager at BEAM for a number of years. She is a trained leadership coach and enjoys working with Heads, Senior Leaders and Maths Subject Leaders on realising their vision for mathematics in their school. She has wide experience in writing, teaching and advising on mathematics both in the UK and abroad and has taught in both primary and seondary schools.

Jennie's research focus is on what constitutes effective CPD for teachers and she has a particular interest in the impact of specialist coaching. Jennie is the PD lead on the National Association of Mathematics Advisors Executive Committee and a member of the Joint Mathematics Council Primary PD committee.

Charlie Gilderdale

Secondary Coordinator

Charlie has taught mathematics in three local comprehensive schools, including a stint as a Head of Department. During the last 18 years he has been working at the University of Cambridge, initially in the Faculty of Education training new secondary mathematics teachers and more recently as a member of the Millennium Mathematics Project contributing to the NRICH website and working in schools with students and teachers. His recent work has focussed on problem solving and on creating opportunities for learning mathematics through exploration and discussion. Charlie has co-ordinated the STIMULUS peer assisted learning project and has acted as a consultant to the HeyMath! project since its inception.

Steve Hewson

Post-16 Coordinator

Steve works part time for the NRICH project developing Key Stage 5 problems and resources, with a current focus on the school-university transition and the mathematics underlying STEM subjects. He also works as an independent consultant mathematician and writer. Prior to working for NRICH, Steve was a secondary mathematics teacher, worked in the city as a financial modeller and researched string theory and black holes at Cambridge University, where he studied mathematics as an undergraduate. Steve is particularly interested in helping to provide a rich and stimulating mathematical experience for 6th formers.

Bernard Bagnall

Primary Teacher Associate

Bernard has been teaching in Primary Schools since the early sixties and became the Mathematics Advisory teacher in Suffolk in the eighties. Since leaving full time teaching he has worked part time in Teacher Training and has run many courses for able pupils. He has a passion for investigational mathematics and started Bernard's Bag on the NRICH site. Bernard is now an author for NRICH, helping Liz to develop the primary material.

Alison Kiddle

Secondary Teacher Associate

Alison graduated with a degree in maths from Cambridge and became a teacher to share her view that maths can be useful, beautiful and a great deal of fun. After a five year period in schools in Peterborough and Hertfordshire, converting young people to her views about maths, Alison joined the NRICH team in January 2009. Her main focus is developing Stage 4 material, and she works with Charlie and Steve to create strong links between Stage 3/4 and Stage 4/5.

Toni Beardon

Post 16 Teacher Associate

Toni was one of the founders and the first Director of the NRICH Project. She saw an online club as a means of extending opportunities for enrichment and extra-curricular mathematics to the widest possible group of young people when she set up NRICH in 1996 and piloted MOTIVATE in 1997. NRICH complements the activities of the Cambridge STIMULUS Project which she set up in 1987, and also of the Royal Institution Mathematics Masterclasses around the UK. Toni is now working to set up an outreach project in Africa modelled on the MMP. See http://aimssec.aims.ac.za. Toni has moved back and forth between school and university teaching over the last four decades. She has taught mathematics in several comprehensive schools. She set up a 2 year PGCE in the then Cambridge University Department of Education. Her research interests include peer education and the impact of communication technology on learning and teaching mathematics. For her work in mathematics education she was awarded the O.B.E. in 2003.

Emma McCaughan

Ask Nrich Coordinator

Emma McCaughan moderates the Ask NRICH web-board. She works very part-time for NRICH, alongside looking after her young daughter and tutoring for the Open University. She is an experienced secondary school maths teacher.

Jenny Murray

Primary Author

Jenny taught in several Primary Schools, went into Teacher Education and then back into school again. Although she started with a History degree she slowly became involved in Maths Education, taking various qualifications in the subject and finally an Open University degree. Jenny is now an author for NRICH, mainly devising problems for those whose mathematical knowledge is at the primary school level.

Mike Pearson

Head of Technical Dept

Mike graduated from Cambridge with a maths degree, and then decided to be a teacher. He taught maths in Netherhall School, Cambridge. However, he was led astray from this noble calling by the exciting prospect of developing microprocessor controllers for washing machines and train sets. Further relapses followed, until in 1983, Mike found himself with the unlikely job title of European Marketing Program Manager for Board and Networking Products for Texas Instruments. Ever onwards and upwards, Mike programmed his way, via a project to paint Volvo 340s (thirteen layers of paint and they still go rusty!) to... to... a very pleasant career as a sculptor, shepherd, and dad. And although once again he wandered from the good life, lured by the riches to be gained in analysing the impact of the internet on Deutsche Telekom and BT networks, Mike is now safely building web sites.

Owen Smith
Unix Systems Admin
Owen joined the NRICH team in June 2002. He primarily deals with the technical development of the NRICH website and administration of our servers. Prior to NRICH Owen worked for a Cambridge software development and hosting company. Owen's early career found him working as a sound engineer and building kit cars.

Jenny Gage
NRICH STEM coordinator
Jenny joined the MMP in January 2001, as Academic Coordinator of the Motivate Project. At the beginning of 2011, she started working on stemNRICH with Steve Hewson, taking over responsibility for KS3/4 from August. She is also working on a new Probability project with Professor David Spiegelhalter. Prior to working for the MMP, Jenny was a secondary maths teacher and also worked for the Open University. She is also a priest in the Church of England, currently working as a curate in a group of five rural parishes.

Chris Clarke
Web Developer
Chris became a member of NRICH in 2010, to work with Mike and Owen in developing new technologies and helping to maintain the existing NRICH website. Chris has worked with a large number of Cambridge based companies in various capacities. He is also very involved in social media and helping to promote interaction outside the site with a larger audience.

Help With Mathematical Display