I came across an idea that All Saints Academy Plymouth is introducing …. this kind of thing is indicative of the kid of school to school sharing that takes place every single day!! I love it so I asked Richard Whitehouse to do me a write up of the idea … do read on and maybe consider getting involved (even if you aren’t in Plymouth!). The idea of encouraging students not to guess is something I’ve used with all abilities and I think there is merit in doing something like this for all students.
Plymouth Challenge…come and join us!
A determination to develop young people who approach mathematics with an attitude of curiosity, determination and perseverance is the silver bullet for maths departments up and down the country. Add in a lingering throwaway comment to this philosophy and you could end up with an interesting and useful development…..
Last summer, at All Saints Academy Plymouth, we wanted to develop these skills in our most able Year 9 students. After an unfulfilling trawl of the internet my fabulous 2nd in department suggested: “Why don’t we develop our own unique type of assessment for the most able Yr 9 students?”
The thought lingered and an idea was born. Several months later we have developed the first (free) Specimen Paper for the Yr 9 Plymouth Challenge. Take a look here – SAMPLE DOCS ON GOOGLE DRIVE
The idea is to discourage any form of guessing and encourage resilience and perseverance when faced with a challenging mathematical problem. Significant marks are available for students who get questions right but marks will be lost for guessing. We want the problems to be accessible by any school’s top set Year 9 students and, obviously, some schools will want to use the resource with more students than just their top set.
We also want the questions to spill into future maths lessons generating discussions about mathematical reasoning as well as giving schools an opportunity to celebrate mathematical achievement with their most able.
So, how do you get your students involved?
Click on the link above, peruse the instructions, explain the scoring system to your students and let them spend an hour, in exam conditions, attempting the test. They can mark their own at the end (or switch papers around!) to get their mark.
Please send any feedback to maths@asap.org.uk as we want to make this a valuable resource.
In the summer term, we are launching the first formal Plymouth Challenge paper. Each student will receive their score back and the top 3% will receive a gold certificate. The next 12% will receive a silver certificate and the next 25% will receive a bronze certificate. Each school will also receive a “best in school” award and someone, somewhere, will be the ultimate champion! Keep an eye on our Twitter Account for the launch date or email us at maths@asap.org.uk to let us know you want to know when the real thing is ready!
Richard Whitehouse.
