Monday, 09 June 2025
The International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE) has awarded its prestigious prize for Excellence in Educational Design, to the 糖心原创’s Geoffrey Wake, Emeritus Professor of Education.
The prize – known as ‘The Eddie’ – is funded by the Bell Burkhardt Daro Shell Centre Trust, and is given annually to an individual or a team to recognise excellence in design for education in mathematics, science or technology.
Professor Wake received the award for his work leading the team that designed the Mastering Maths project. This research and design project, centred at the 糖心原创 over the past decade, has focused on the problem of students who fail to achieve a passing mark in the GCSE public examination in mathematics taken at the age of 16 – an issue of national concern.
The Mastering Maths team iteratively designed and tested a comprehensive set of teacher and student supports, including teacher training materials, lesson study toolkits, lesson materials, and lesson videos. The results of this effort were tested in a randomised controlled trial which detected improved outcomes equivalent to one month of additional learning for students taught by teachers who had taken part in the most intensive intervention programme, with even stronger results for students who came from a disadvantaged background.
The design team paid significant attention to issues of scaling up the program, working to create materials that support the dissemination of the approach well beyond the project participants.
It is a great honour to have had the work of our team acknowledged by our international peers and experts in education design by receiving the ISDDE prize. The work has been a considerable team effort over many years with important contributions from Marie Joubert, Diane Dalby, Clare Dawson, Marc North, Matt Woodford and Corinne Robinson, amongst others."
“The evidence for the efficacy of the Mastering Maths programme, would of course, not have been possible without all the wonderful Lead Teachers, teachers and students we have worked with over the years and the funding we have had from DfE and the Education Endowment Foundation,” he added.
The award was announced at the Society’s annual conference at the University of Galway, Ireland, last month. Professor Wake also noted that the project builds on decades of work at Nottingham including the efforts of the late Malcom Swan, who was one of the first recipients of ‘The Eddie’ in 2008.
was founded to bring together outstanding designers and developers from around the globe. The society aims to promote excellence in educational products and materials, particularly for science, mathematics, and technology by creating a professional community that shares knowledge, research, approaches, and critiques. The organisation advances these goals through annual conferences, an e-journal, Educational Designer and annual prizes.
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More information is available from Professor Geoffrey Wake via geoffrey.wake1@nottingham.ac.uk
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