Meet the experts behind SMASH Maths

Sarah-Anne Fernandes

Sarah-Anne is a leading UK Mathematics Educational Consultant who has had the privilege of working with several schools and school leaders across the country to help them improve maths curriculum teaching and results.

She has a proven track record of significantly raising standards in both successful schools and those in challenging circumstances. Sarah-Anne was instrumental in raising mathematics standards in the London Borough of Sutton, which became the second highest performing local authority in the country for mathematics when she was in post as the local authority maths advisor.

Sarah-Anne has a First-Class Honours in Education and won the mathematics prize for her research in supporting lower attaining pupils with becoming confident and able problem solvers. She also has a Post Graduate Certificate in Education Leadership.

Sarah-Anne has worked in school as a Senior Leader being a Deputy Headteacher in a London Primary School but her real passion lies with supporting all students to achieve their absolute best in mathematics. This led her to set up her own consultancy company, SolveMaths in 2014 which provides mathematics consultancy and training for schools, Headteachers, Mathematics Subject Leaders and teachers. In 2018, Sarah-Anne had the invaluable opportunity of being a Primary Regional Leader for PiXL– a charity organisation that supports nearly one thousand primary schools in the UK.

She loves to teach and has first-hand experience of helping pupils pass 7+ and 11+ entrance exams with great success. Over the years, Sarah-Anne has been commissioned to Author and be Series Editor for a range of titles for leading Education publishers. This is where Sarah-Anne and Trevor became connected and together they have worked on several maths books and assessments that have been used by schools and pupils across the country.

Trevor Dixon

Trevor Dixon has over 35 years’ teaching experience; working for nearly 30 years as a maths subject leader in three different primary schools. He is a former Advanced Skills Teacher, who specialised in mathematics teaching and learning. Trevor led and organised a Saturday morning class for gifted mathematicians drawn from Year 6 pupils across his local authority.

He is an Associate of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. He also holds the Mathematics Association Diploma of Mathematical Education alongside his degree and teaching qualifications.

Trevor has marked maths SATs papers since 1996 and has been a team leader since 2016. He has also written Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 S.A.T.s questions for Pearson UK and National Foundation for Educational Research (N.F.E.R.) He has also worked as a senior coder for Scottish Qualifications Authority (S.Q.A.) and for N.F.E.R. when the results of trial assessments are analysed as part of their development process. He has been a member of the Standards and Testing Agency (S.T.A.) Expert Review Panels for KS1 SATs.

Trevor has a wide experience of writing maths assessment questions and papers, study guides and workbooks for Rising Stars. This involved writing three sets of SATs-style papers from Years 1 to Year 6. He was also involved in writing for the Achieve series of publications for Rising Stars and the Practise Maths series. Trevor has been involved with similar work for HarperCollins, Letts, AlphaPlus and GL Assessment from KS1 to KS3; also writing maths assessment questions Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority.

He has written exam papers for Cambridge Progression Mathematics for Oxford, Cambridge and R.S.A. Examinations (O.C.R.) and was a senior marker for the exam.