I miss blogging but I’ve been so busy for the last few weeks that I just haven’t had the time to do it as often as I like – I have so many half-written blog posts that a couple of them are no longer relevant and the moment has passed when I get to relook at them. To be honest I’m becoming more aware of people reading the blog that they are taking longer than usual to write and I’ve found myself thinking “what’s the actual point of this post? What am I trying to say?” – in the past there usually wasn’t a point and no hidden message – it was just me typing whatever comes into my head.

Does that mean I’m getting over my blogging Tourette’s? Probably not! In fact I hope not – I’ve set myself a time limit for this post and when the time is up … that’s your lot!

Recently my Twitter timeline has been littered with seemingly more academic maths teachers – for some reason there are days when I read it and I feel like the stupidest person I know. People discussing their teaching in such depth that I really wonder if I’m doing it wrong? No really, I do.

A couple of weeks ago I had a performance management observation with my year 7s and prior to it the whole “showing progress” thing was on my mind – bear in mind these students had only been at the school for a few weeks. Much of my work up until that point has been about assessing what they know and embedding basic skills from primary school (also after a 7 week break!) and so most of the work we’ve done has been in the back of their books ( I blogged about it here ) or on mini whiteboards. I’ve basically spent a lot of the time “playing with number” and solving number problems using different number types/properties (for example: factors, multiples, primes, fractions, decimals, percentages etc) and all the four operations – Nrich has been brilliant for sourcing these type of problems.

I see the first few weeks in secondary as crucial – I want students to enjoy maths – not because it’s easy or they always play games (they don’t). I want my students to get a buzz from solving a problem and to crave that sense of satisfaction when they get an “ah-ha” moment – it is addictive. The one thing that is evident with a couple of students is that we need to work on their resilience – I see them trying a problem, not getting a solution and thinking that is enough work and then giving up. This is a learned behaviour that needs to be addressed – I’ve been really blatant about “that moment” and when they experience it I tell them to remember it and want to get there again. It seems to be working and they seem to be enjoying maths.

Buuugggger! I’ve gone off on a tangent again! … so the lesson: The main objective was looking at how place value in multiplication can help us solve multiplication problems more efficiently. I started with asking them about the date which was 5 10 15 and what was special about it (most of them came up with things like: it’s the 5 times table or 5 + 10 = 15) – its palindromic by the way. They then looked at when the last palindromic date was and when the next one will be. I used this because I wanted it to lead into a discussion about place value. It did!! My cunning plan worked!

During the “sharing information” we looked at where we could place a given set of numbers to make a multiplication sum “work” (e.g. use the digits 4, 1, 2, 4, 8 in _ x _ _ = _ _ ) and how rather than just trial and error (improvement?!?!) of working out lots of “sums” we could be smart about working with the “units” to see what combinations worked and what combinations didn’t. For example it couldn’t be 1 x _2 because we didn’t have another 2 as the answer would always end in a 2. I do hope that makes sense. The students then had 30 or 40 (I know!!) questions to work through – I’d printed them in groups of 5 onto coloured paper so that they weren’t bombarded with loads.

It worked really well and when asked which strip of questions (from the unfinished ones) they wanted to take home as homework most of them wanted to take them all! A couple have commented about how they’ve enjoyed showing their parents how to work it out too!

In the last week or so, I’ve started to introduce much more formal book work with them – they get the worked examples written down during the class discussion and then when they come to do the work themselves I’ve noticed that because it’s in the front of their books their presentation is better. Brucey bonus! Next week we’re going to be doing this “ whodunnit ” from a couple of years ago and I’m going to focus on how we prove something and it not being just about finding the “one” wrong or right answer. The best way to provide the evidence is to exhaust all the possibilities.

With the other year groups it’s that time of the term when we are doing in-class assessments and all the marking that comes with it means I have an exciting day ahead of me. That is not meant in a “woe is me” kind of way because I like marking (don’t hate me!) – as a teacher I think it informs my teaching. We’ve marked year 11 and after we sit down as a team on Monday to discuss grade boundaries (we use past papers but may move boundaries upwards slightly … harsh I know but (a) we don’t want them to be complacent at the top end and (b) it builds in a buffer!) we hope to do the whole “envelope opening” thing in class with them next week … busy busy!

What came out from the year 11 assessment is how we take things for granted that unless students get exposure to certain types of questions they don’t have a clue about how to answer them even when the “sums” involved are simple. The question involved a gas meter reading at the end of one month, followed by the reading at the end of the next (you know the one!) and most students didn’t “get” that all they had to do was work out number of gas units and multiply by 15p per unit. I’ve since spoken to several students and one of them asked me “why haven’t we been taught that topic?” – well! It’s not really a topic is it? It is certainly something that we’ll look to introduce lower down the school (bear in mind we’re only into our second year!) as part of using basic number skills.

**beep beep beep** that’s it my time is up. Hope I didn’t go too pedagogical on “yo ass” ? (what does that even mean??) Pressing publish NOW!