FROM THE COALFACE 1

To HOD or not to HOD – The poison chalice? Occasionally, when I’m not being over-protective about this being “my blog” I hand over the reigns to a guest author and this evening is one of those times -having put a “shout out” for guest posts it looks like I’m going to have a series … Read more

Getting to zero

My aim this week is to get my inbox to nil and so I’m working through the contents slowly but surely – it hasn’t been helped by getting involved in a group fighting against a quarry in my village which for the last 3 weeks has generated about 20-25 emails (Don’t ask!) a DAY!! Anyway … Read more

Choosing an exam board …

Something must have pulled someones chain because this week this appeared on the Ofqual blog. I have included the text as it appears today (some of these government bodies update their pages after comments are made on a public forum … so just in case!) and also added my own comments to it just for … Read more

Primary Maths Challenge

As the saying goes: “every day is a school day” and last weekend at a meeting of the Teaching Committee of the Mathematical Association (the MA!) I found out about the primary maths challenge which is aimed at students in years 5 and 6. It is held every November with bonus rounds usually in the … Read more

Mr Bartons PodCast

If you don’t know about this you should do – Mr Barton has been doing some podcasts and they are brilliant. He has spoken to the “big names” from 3 of the exam boards and listening to them has been brilliant  – it’s nice to hear people talking about Maths education. No! It really is … Read more

The big “O” – part 3

So I’ve shared the fact that we had “the call” (Part 1) and was observed (Part 2). Now time for the feedback session. You may remember (I know it sounds odd) that myself and Seager met with the lead inspector to get feedback on our lessons together. As we walked in it felt OK (we … Read more

Edexcel GCSE Results Plus – NOV 2015

I have been inundated with requests for the “usual” ResultsPlus analysis sheets for the November 2015 paper – we didn’t have any students entered for the Foundation tier (we did have an external candidate for the Higher tier) but with “a little help from my friends” (thanks Craig Jeavons .. you’re a star!) I’ve been … Read more

Secret Link