Peter Nowland  Teacher, Mathematics Author and Presenter of Professional Learning Courses

Peter has had 37 years involvement with education in a variety of positions with the Department of Education in Western Australia including classroom teacher (primary and secondary), principal (primary and secondary), curriculum writer (Mathematics) and author of many educational resources. Peter is also well known for his professional development workshops and seminars based on the WA Curriculum Framework and WA Mathematics Syllabus with a focus on student-centred, inquiry-focused education.

After beginning his career as a classroom teacher and teacher-in-charge of a one teacher school, Peter was seconded in 1978 to work with the curriculum team developing the world-renowned WA Learning Mathematics Syllabus. As well as contributing as an author, Peter also headed up one of two groups responsible for the professional learning program that supported the introduction of the Syllabus into all WA and NT schools.Through these experiences Peter became aware that teachers wanted further assistance in the form of inquiry-focused teaching ideas and, from that, the original edition of his Mathematics Today Series (MTS) was written.

By the time Peter had completed and published the first edition of MTS in 1983, he had been back in schools for 3 years as a deputy principal before being seconded for a second time (1983-84) to continue with further professional learning support to schools in the areas of Mathematics, Science and S&E. During the period 1985-89 Peter was Principal of a district high school before returning to primary education as a principal of a large, and fast-growing, metropolitan school.

This latter appointment occurred at the same time as the release of the National Goals for Schooling and the draft WA Curriculum Framework. Both documents had a profound influence on the direction Peter took in his school leadership role, in his professional writing and through his professional learning courses. In 1997, following the success of his courses, Peter resigned from the Department of Education to combine his dual interests in writing and delivering professional learning courses into an educational consultancy business.

Peter’s company, School Centre Australia, has also been publishing the Mathematics Today Series (MTS) since 1983. Initially MTS was presented in traditional textbook and blackline master format but since 2002 MTS has been available to schools in a digital database format that was released on CD. This inexpensive and highly flexible way of accessing support materials has genuinely met the needs of teachers looking to implement a student-centred, inquiry-focused approach in the classroom as can be seen by the many hundreds of licensed schools across all Australian states.

In 2008 and 2009 Peter has focused his time fully on making the MTS database available online to schools across Australia and everywhere in the world. Now it is simply a matter of teachers logging into School Centre to be able to search for, sort and print (and perhaps even customize) mathematics learning activities to meet every student need.

Peter can be contacted directly by email at peter@schoolcentre.com.au