CPD with the NSTA | reflectivemaths

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Just before half term, my school took part in the North Somerset Teaching Alliance’s joint Inset day. This involved seven local schools working together to share ideas on teaching and building networks. Here is my summary of the aspects I was involved in.

Subject specific teachmeet

Jimi talked through some approaches he uses for starters and some easy ways to vary tasks in a way that isn’t a lot of work for the teacher while still helping students approach questions in a variety of ways.

Tim showed us some nice Geogebra applets and encouraged us to explore the ready made ideas.

Jenny…

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Is learning maths really so different? | JustMathsMel

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I’m going to say something that is probably going to be widely contentious. Learning maths is different to other subjects … ok … so I probably need to add some provisos and context. Generally, I don’t have the privilege of teaching high flying groups (out of choice mainly!) and so most of the groups I teach have a back story and they are where they are for whatever reason – mainly though, where they are is not where they should be or where they are capable of being. I will never apologise for the work being challenging and I am certainly not going to lower my standards in terms of what I…

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Multiplication Tables: testing for fluency and teaching for understanding | Oxford Primary

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Written by Louise Pennington,  Professional Development Leader for maths at Oxford University Press. The Multiplication Tables Check The Standards Testing Agency (STA) published the Multiplication Tables Check Assessment Framework in November last year. This document contains some key information about the Year 4 testing that will be statutory from June 2020: Voluntary pilot 10-28th June 2019 3 week window in June 2020 […]

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CPD with the NSTA | reflectivemaths

teachingbattleground

Just before half term, my school took part in the North Somerset Teaching Alliance’s joint Inset day. This involved seven local schools working together to share ideas on teaching and building networks. Here is my summary of the aspects I was involved in.

Subject specific teachmeet

Jimi talked through some approaches he uses for starters and some easy ways to vary tasks in a way that isn’t a lot of work for the teacher while still helping students approach questions in a variety of ways.

Tim showed us some nice Geogebra applets and encouraged us to explore the ready made ideas.

Jenny…

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Ask Uncle Colin: Scheduling a tournament | Colin

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Dear Uncle Colin,

I’m trying to organise a tournament involving seven teams and two pitches. The following conditions must hold:
Each team plays four games
No pair of teams meets more than once
Each team must play at most one pair of back-to-back matches

How would you solve this?
Bit Of Hard Rescheduling

Hi, BOHR, and thanks for your message! I found this quite tricky, but eventually came up with a schedule that works:
Round
Pitch 1
Pitch 2
1
1 v 7
5 v 3
2
2 v 1
6 v 4
3
3 v 2
7 v 5
4
4 v 3
1 v 6
5
5 v 4
2 v 7
6
6 v 5
3…

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Cognitive Dissonance: A primer for educators | NWMaths

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“For if we are uncritical, we shall always find what we want“- Karl Popper

Chapters 4 and 5 of Matthew Syed’s excellent book Black Box Thinking explore the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance and its associated ‘intellectual contortions’. A working knowledge of this, potentially damaging but very human, tendency would be beneficial for anyone involved in education.

‘Cognitive dissonance’ is described in the book as the “inner tension we feel when, among other things, our beliefs are challenged by evidence”. When a view that we believe is challenged by new data, we have two options, to…

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What chance Brexit? | A Maths Teacher

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What chance Brexit?

As the deadline date of March 29th looms ever closer, are we any closer to finding out what will happen?

On his blog Jon Worth has produced an excellent flow chart where can follow all the possible twists and turns before ending at one of five possible outcomes. In addition to suggesting possible outcomes, he has added probabilities at each decision point.

Using nothing more than GCSE Maths*, it is then possible to calculate the probabilities of the various outcomes.

I’ve done the maths for you, the results are below (rounded to 2 decimal places)
No Deal…

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Junk food — Junk e-learning? | Tim Stirrup

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Junk food — Junk e-learning?
*This article was written in… well, can you guess? There are some huge hints along the way. Not least e-credits and the ‘Government e-strategy’ ! I have not updated or changed any aspect*
Education is entering an era where the use of ICT is becoming more and more accepted as essential for success. Report after report present evidence to show the impact ICT is having and to indicate what impact it can have. Millions of pounds have been invested in hardware, and in e-learning credits.
However, is ICT and e-learning in particular, sometimes used in an inappropriate…

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This is what happens when teachers find their voice | Greg Ashman

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One of the most obvious signs that teachers are starting to take control of the education agenda is when there is resistance from the establishment. There are hints that we are approaching this state in Australia, but we are way behind England in terms of teacher voice. Now, a new development involving Ofsted, the English … Continue reading This is what happens when teachers find their voice →

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