My Views on Mastery … for what they’re worth ..

At the recent La Salle Maths Conference there was a session labelled the “great mastery debate” (don’t … do you hear me? … don’t say it quickly!) where Bruno Reddy, Alan Patel and Amir Arezoo debated the whole mastery thing. The idea being that the three guys would debate “what is mastery? Is it an … Read more

Ofqual Blog 20th Mar 2015

I have so much I want to blog about but instead I’ve been waylaid by an update from Ofqual about the GCSE research programme ( 20th March Update ). Before I “go off on one” I have a little update to my last post where I summarised the accreditation process ( HERE ) and also outlined the fact … Read more

I *may* have sent a letter

There have been a couple of headlines recently that have caught my attention but I know regular readers (do I have regular readers? if so **waves hello**) will find the it as no surprise that I’d be interested. The BBC Education Page ran with “Exam changes risk problems for schools, say heads” and the online version of … Read more

Two is the magic number

I’ve been thinking a lot about misconceptions recently and also revisited a couple of old posts looking for stuff to use for revision when I came across my revision mat idea ( HERE ) that was produced using ideas that were “twitter-sourced” and it has got me thinking.  I really want to get students exploring ways in … Read more

You couldn’t let it lie!

In the last couple of weeks I’ve come across “several” (that’s me being cagey when I mean “lots of”) teachers that didn’t know about Ofquals Maths GCSE research project (more details -> HERE ) . I didn’t find this startling given that they also didn’t know about the Glenys Stacey letter that effectively asked the exam boards … Read more

Bread and Butter – Grade C and Beyond

The bread and butter sheets for our year 11s have gone down really well and they’re having a massive impact. So I’ve been putting the finishing touches to some for those students working at grade C and beyond. I’ve detailed the original plan HERE and they ‘re meant to work in the same way as the … Read more

Embarassed?

Friday was an INSET day for us at school but we’d previously agreed to host the annual review meeting of the collaborative network schools facilitated by Edexcel, so couldn’t take part in what I’ve heard was a fab event with Alistair Smith. We’ve been calling it the “hub of hubs” in that the idea is … Read more

GCSE Maths Research Programme

I feel like secret squirrel. I know for a fact that last night’s blog post ( HERE ) has been a topic of conversation in various offices across the country. Not only for its content, but also conspiracy theories abound about how I came across Glenys Stacey’s letter before “they” had received a copy, as it … Read more

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