(L-R: Acting Registrar, Nigel Laity & Mike Chartres)

Mike Chartres from the Primary Mathematics Association (PMA) was this year’s winner of the TRB’s Induction and Mentoring Award.

Mike trained as a generalist primary teacher at Salisbury Teachers College in the early 1970s. His keen interest in mathematics saw his training include four years of discipline study in mathematics and three years in the sciences. Mike recalls how quickly people dropped studying mathematics even at an undergraduate level.  “My first semester was calculus with some 120 other student teachers, many of them doing the secondary program. By my eighth semester, the algebra class consisted of four students”.

A busy career followed working in the public sector as a classroom teacher, school leader, curriculum advisor and writer, and project officer. In 1991, Mike left the sector to work as a lecturer in primary mathematics and science education at UniSA and then left academia in late 2013. Now semi-retired, he continues to work part-time in R-7 mathematics education and STEM for the PMA, and as an independent consultant.

“I first became involved with the PMA as a classroom teacher in the early 80s attending some professional development workshops,” he says. “This introduced me to colleagues with a similar interest to teach mathematics in creative and innovative ways.”

Mike currently holds the position of Country Coordinator but, as with most small professional associations, pitches in and does a bit of everything to support members. Together with his PMA colleagues Mike’s key role is co-designing and presenting professional learning and resources for members with a particular focus on early career teachers.

“PMA offers numerous opportunities to work with colleagues who have a similar passion to become the best teacher of mathematics one can. It offers numerous opportunities to encourage and support our current and new generation of primary teachers to make a significant difference to their students’ lives with respect to learning mathematics.”

The PMA is also quite active in providing classroom teacher perspectives and feedback to State and Federal groups about primary mathematics policy and curriculum initiatives.

In 1996 Mike was honoured with life membership of PMA.

Find out more about Educators SA and the benefits of joining a professional teacher association.