We’ve been thinking about the questions we want students to work through when we get them doing some “actual” work with our “super group” (we team teach a mahoosive group in year 11). After we’ve done the whole class explanation we usually get them practising a similar question (or questions) in the first instance and then some trickier ones that require them to make a little cognitive “jump” themselves. This requires (as most maths does) some resilience on their part and we’ve found that lots of the issues around resilience stem from linking other areas of maths (usually their “numerosity” skills) to the task in hand. The last thing we want students focusing on is the complexity of a task that we are giving them in addition to all the other “mathsey” stuff we are expecting of them which is why familiarity of a style of activity is key – think about the first time you gave a group of students a tarsia puzzle compared to how they can cope the next time (I certainly noticed less “I don’t get it”s around the room). Their focus shifts from the actual activity to the “maths” and this is where we aim to get to, so whenever we introduce a new style of worksheet to them for the first time our philosophy has always been to make the “maths” quite simple.

I mentioned on an earlier post that I see worksheets and activities as a “carrier” for questions/problems we want students to work on – I suppose its teaching “by stealth” … hiding the questions in some form of activity rather than a series of questions in a textbook. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-textbooks I just don’t use them very often with the groups I teach but teaching is a personal thing (I can count the number of times I’ve used a class set of books in the last two years on ONE FINGER). Also don’t think this style of teaching is for every one or every group of students but in terms of our year 11’s I’ve seen students over a period of time becoming more engaged in lessons not because it’s fun (that can be a nice side effect) but because they are learning new “stuff” and making progress. When I think back to my PGCE and NQT I was conscious that I wanted to get them doing some work as quickly as possible – there was also a belief  at the time that teacher talk should be kept to a minimum (I think someone quoted to me that I should be talking for less than 12 minutes a lesson … what tosh!! It all depends what and how that talking is structured! I have yet to see a teacher who just talks “at” a group in maths – it is, in the main lots of whole class questioning!) At the time I also had a fear that the more time they weren’t working the more likely they were to misbehave but as the years have passed it gets easier to control that fear and being established in a school helps too. 

Anyway, I’ve digressed again! The short story is that I’ve been working on some code breaker worksheets (don’t be thinking ciphers or owt!). There are loads of amazing ones of these on TES and I wanted something that I could build in some progression specifically for our focus students that we teach with the level of difficulty increasing as the students work through the sheet too. The idea is that I’ve done some for a few of the new topics we’re introducing into the Super60 and before we use them with our new year 11 students I’ve done a VERY simple one, that will demonstrate how they work (the maths is VERY simple … remember what I said about wanting them to focus on the mechanics of the activity the first time we do anything new). This worksheet in fact is one that I’m using on Monday with my year 7’s that will also give me an opportunity to review where they are at too before we formally assess them .. 2 birds one worksheet (and of course answers too!)! 

I may be talking rubbish but thought I’d share and as usual you can always choose to ignore me!