Upkar Singh

Biography

Upkar originally worked as a Secondary Mathematics teacher for 15 years in many areas of the West Midlands, progressing to Head of Department. Initially he started as a Teacher of Mathematics and found promotion where his role was embedding e-learning within mathematics teaching and learning. His second promotion as a Second in the mathematics department; Upkar was responsible for KS4 teaching and learning. Finally Upkar was promoted to Head of Department where he oversaw and managed the mathematics department where focus was on improvement, creativity, impact and attainment.

Upkar completed his MSc in Mathematics Education at the University of Warwick and then pursued employment in Higher Education. He was employed at Oxford Brookes University as Senior Lecturer of Mathematics Education where he led and delivered the  Subject Knowledge Enhancement Course module programme and also was member of the Secondary PGCE/School Direct programme, where he was involved in the of training secondary mathematics teacher trainees as well as teaching on taught modules. Furthermore Upkar at Oxford Brookes was part of Education Studies team where he delivered the Contemporary Issues in Education module at Master’s Level.

When Upkar took his role as Senior Lecturer of Education (Secondary Mathematics) at Newman University in 2013 , his main focus was to develop and deliver an exciting programme to prepare future trainee mathematics for 21st century mathematics teaching and learning. This has been substantiated by his External Examiner. His philosophy of mathematics teaching and learning is to ensure that trainee teachers promote and develop pupil’s conceptual understanding of mathematics as well as applying mathematics to many relevant and contextual scenarios. Furthermore, Upkar has developed and currently leads the Subject Knowledge Enhancement course for Mathematics at Newman University; where emphasis is on developing mathematical mastery.

Upkar is about to embark on a PhD programme where is research interests are on the tensions of mathematics teaching learning across transition stages, the impact of using heterogeneous groupings with secondary mathematics education and also exploring the interconnectedness of mathematics conceptual understanding to ensure pupils have a deeper relational understanding of mathematics.