Awards highlight how hard work improves children's lives

The judging involves carefully looking at hundreds of entries, every single one of which represents real and tangible achievement and hard work. Every project has worked in the real world, often against a challenging background, but coming through with improvements in children's lives. The variety of the entries is kaleidoscopic and the judges have to work hard to whittle the entries down to a final shortlist.

The awards gala itself is a magnificent occasion for the public affirmation of the creative work of all the runners-up and the award winners. The most important outcome, though, is that brilliant practitioner-led development work is valued and publicised, not simply to be copied elsewhere, but rather to increase our knowledge about what works and what can be achieved. Listening to the winners, the theme is always "we didn't do this for ourselves, but for children and young people". So, after the recent 2015 awards ceremony, you can see why I am in feel-good mode.

Now, compare and contrast the CYP Now Award winners with the typical top-down government approach to educational improvement. "Shanghai maths" is the most recent example of imported systems that ministers hope will provide a magic bullet to improve outcomes. We are in the second year of the experiment, and I'm pleased that the government has commissioned a proper external evaluation. We won't know the outcomes of the evaluation for several years, and the relevant Pisa rankings are not due until 2018. This, though, isn't stopping unrestrained ministerial enthusiasm for the project. Schools minister Nick Gibb, in welcoming the Shanghai teachers, said: "If the exchange can show enough English teachers the merits of (Shanghai) practice, it will have been a resounding success."

Professor David Reynolds, one of the evaluators, is a self-avowed "enthusiast". And Harper Collins is already translating the Shanghai mathematics practice books into English for immediate use.

The Shanghai approach is based around increased time spent on carefully planned whole-class teaching, with less content, but an emphasis on learning that content much more thoroughly. Gibb says: "This emphasis on depth before breadth ensures that the solid foundations are laid for the future achievement of all pupils."

That all sounds plausible and well worth trying. But so far, it is more hope than reality. When you dig deeper, you find that Reynolds also said "it was not beyond the bounds of possibility" that UK pupils could do better in the Pisa 2018 tests thanks to Shanghai-style teaching. That doesn't feel like an unconditional endorsement.

There are also important differences between UK and Shanghai education, with Shanghai pupils having much more maths homework (nightly) and testing (weekly), as well as private tutoring and weekend school. Dr John Jerrim from the Institute of Education at University College London has worked with the OECD on the Pisa tests and has researched the Singapore mastery method. He concludes that mastery methods lead to "small gains in test scores, but the emphasis should be on small".

A small gain is nevertheless worth having. But beyond the underlying differences between Shanghai and the UK education systems, there are other confounding factors. So, the schools and teachers that have volunteered have a stake in showing real improvement and will work extra hard to achieve that. In addition, there is the well-documented Hawthorne Effect, in which the novelty of being research subjects can lead to temporary increases in workers' productivity. These are not criticisms or accusations of manipulation, but, as always, these factors will need to be accounted for by the final evaluation.

I'm not cynical, and I do hope the Shanghai Maths Project will tell us something important about mathematics education. Equally, I'm certain maths teachers across the country are not sitting around waiting for the 2018 evaluation report, in the same way that many colleagues are working on exciting developments with young people across the public, private and voluntary sectors.

I'm sure we will have the usual exciting plethora of entries to the CYP Now Awards for 2016, and it would be great to see something homegrown on mathematics education. If only the funding that goes into international projects could support the smaller scale work across the sector, then we could make even more progress.

John Freeman CBE is a former director of children's services and is now a freelance consultant Read his blog at cypnow.co.uk/freemansthinking