Becoming a google school
I love my IT department the are brilliant. I spend quite a lot of time going up to see them and asking for things that often have completely unrealistic timescales like can you please make this work for my lesson that starts in 10 minutes! They pretty much always manage it. If you don’t already love your IT department grab a packet of biscuits and go make friends. Continue reading “Becoming a google school”
Sheffield Maths Teachmeet
Just before the summer holidays when life was seeming nice and quiet I was talking to our director of teaching and learning about Teachmeets. I said that I’d like to organised a maths one, as always she was very encouraging so we decided that it should be done on the same day as our twilight training in December which would give plenty of time to prepare. What I hadn’t thought out was just how long this term would be and how many things I had to do first. Continue reading “Sheffield Maths Teachmeet”
Work life balance
I struggle with what it means to have a work life balance. Lately balance has meant lots of work and lots of life things. I’ve been to gigs on schools nights, knitted things, made origami things, organised a maths teach meet and probably not slept enough. It’s meant I haven’t updated this site, blogged about things or really engaged with much on twitter. Continue reading “Work life balance”
Trying to find ways to help students revise is something I’ve always been interested in. It seems like somewhere along the way I worked out how to revise and got very good at learning information for exams (you’ll notice that’s not necessarily remembering it). My students on the other hand tend not to be great at revision so we always do a lesson or two on revision at some point. Whether I like it or not the way things are going are more and more bits of information and formulas that students need to remember and that seems to be something a lot of students struggle with. Continue reading “Foldables”
Radians as the first AS topic
The start of AS Maths is always tricky. This year we are trying something different and teaching radians first. At the end of last year Sharon and myself went to a course about interactive teaching in a level maths. They gave us protractors that measured in radians which we were very excited about and on the way home in between worrying about whether the college car was about to blow up we designed a scheme of work that would start with radians.
I meant to post this at the end of last year but it sat neglected in my drafts for a while. I was thinking about the things that had been useful over the year. Continue reading “Five Favourites for GCSE from 1415”
GCSE resit teachers meet up after MathsConf5
A while back I wrote about GCSE resit teachers working together and supporting each other and now there is a bit more of a plan. Continue reading “GCSE resit teachers meet up after MathsConf5”
This is going to be pretty short as I’m supposed to be knocking out fireplaces and stripping wallpaper but I’m feeling quite positive and enthusiastic.
A few weeks ago I wrote to my MP Paul Blomfield about the changes to the maths GCSE and my worried about the effects it will have. (If you’re interested the letter is here). I not only got a response he asked me to meet him to talk about it further. Talking about maths education is always one of my favourite things so that’s what I’ve been doing this morning. Continue reading “Meeting my MP”
Having spent two years looking for a house to buy I got very into looking on rightmove, there were some horrors and some great ideas. I wish there was a school equivalent where I could see into other peoples class rooms. I figure if I’m nosey other people might be so I took some pictures of my classroom. Continue reading “A tour of my classroom”
Ms Steel Maths 