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

Getting Ready to Teach the New GCSE

I do try to be impartial about the different exam boards (trust me I try!!) and previously I’ve let you know what support OCR are offering (blog post -> HERE). I’ve also been contacted by Andrew Taylor at AQA just before Christmas (sorry it’s taken me so long to blog about it!) to let me … Read more

“Doing my bit”

I am conscious that some of you don’t have the same sense of humour or outlook on life as me – after all “my perception is my reality” – so when I blog about the teacher shortage I don’t mean it to be all “doom and gloom”. In fact I do whatever I can do, … Read more

Now means “Now”

Today (a Saturday!) the letter from Nick Gibb to the awarding bodies was published on the DFE site (here). The content doesn’t really affect me or our students directly, but nonetheless does concern me for reasons I shall explain. The DFE have made the decision that iGCSEs (and that includes the “level 1 and 2 … Read more

Secret Link