So far, this week has been a bit hectic (when isn’t that the case?) and also a little bit frustrating; last night I spent nearly four hours putting together a schedule of one to ones and my work lappie decided to have a fit and at about 11:15 I lost all the work! arrrrrrggghhh!!! It was at that point I gave up and decided to start again tonight … I have yet to start, and I suppose I’m procrastinating by blogging.

What I could have done, is to finish some of my part-written blog posts, which range from “how we manage whole school one to one tuition using under-allocation”, to “now that November exams are no longer being used, what can be done to replicate “that” feeling of it being a proper exam” BUT in the spirit of making this up as I go along, (instead of actually doing any “proper” work) what follows may be slightly rambling, for which I apologise. As I say that, I can assure you it’s not a double-bluff … I genuinely don’t know what is going to come next …

bread and butter 2

(a) “Bread and butter” worksheets are going down really well with year 11’s. So well in fact, that I introduced them to my year 10’s … but with a twist in that we dedicated a lesson to them having a go and then they annotated the sheets with key facts, and “how to do’s” around the outside so that next week when they get them for starters they have something to refer to. The work some of them produced was stunning! (I’ve added one of them above). With these groups (both sets have target grades of D/E/F’s) I have given them an incentive that if they get 30 out of 30 correct, they don’t have to do any homework that week … but I know that in order to achieve that they must be doing some “deliberate practice” in their own time too, which is one of the aims of the sheets. OMG! that actually sounds like there was some thought put into it! I have also added 3.1 to the blog post here ready for you to use next week.

(b) The advert for an additional teacher, at the school where we work, went onto TES this weekend. Exciting times ahead and it means that the room we use for numeracy booster and a sort of maths office is being returned to its original use as a classroom, so the maths office is being relocated. Now wait for this … to give us a new office, some boys toilets are being converted – I am sure it will be fab. Seager made two requests (1) for a toilet to be left in and (2) that the room is named “The Seager Suite” … funnily enough, both requests were declined.

(c) Collaborative scheme of work update. About 60 + teachers have said that they want to get involved, and school has agreed that we can host a couple of meetings there to kick this off – I’m doing 2 so that people can choose which one to attend. The dates are either 12th or 19th Feb (yes one is half term!), and places are limited so if you want to come along, please do let me know (mail me: mel@justmaths.co.uk) … if you’ve already said that you’re coming, don’t worry – I have a list and your name will be on it!

(d) I have a PM observation coming up, so I’m starting to think about where I’ll be in terms of topics, but it got me thinking about the whole observation game. I suppose this also links into the fact that we are on “Ofsted-Alert” and it sometimes, seems to permeate everything we do as a whole school, and  makes me slightly cynical (I know! imagine  that .. me? cynical?). I also don’t particularly like observations – believe it or not, I’m not a showman – I get quite nervous about the whole thing and end up kicking myself after the lessons. I particularly hate that “so how do you think it went?” because the first thing I say is: “It was bloody awful” and end up reeling off 27 things I wasn’t happy with. I will write up my lesson, and share whatever I make … I am thinking reverse percentages will be the topic (not because it lends itself to some exciting resources, but because that will be what I want to teach them based on their last assessment) … maybe I haven’t quite got the hang of this game yet?

THAT FEELS BETTER …. I’m now ready to do some work … maybe!

P.S.: The name of this post comes from me referring to Wednesdays as “hump day” … it’s the hump of the working week and from here on in, it’s a downwards roll towards the weekend. Got to be honest when I first starting using it in school I did get some funny looks, but there is nothing unusual about that, and I’m kinda used to it now.