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By Vicky Osborne (May 2020)

This year I have taken on a new role as a Teaching and Learning Lead. My main interest is Teaching for Mastery in secondary mathematics, and I have been very fortunate now to introduce a mastery approach into 4 different schools. In taking on the role I wanted to give serious consideration to staff wellbeing and workload. I think an enthusiasm for new teaching initiatives can cause an increase in workload for us teachers as we change our lessons and structures in order to meet new expectations.

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by Ruth Colenso (May 2020)

I was fortunate (and I think brave) enough to attend the London maths event on problem solving. It was run on Zoom with the added twist that you could choose to have a blind date. I was paired with a lovely Scottish chap and we choose to use facetime to talk, and the collaborative whiteboard website bitpaper to share our work.

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by Livia Mitson (May 2020)

Trying to teach maths in the lockdown seems to be mostly about using external websites such as mymaths, mathswatch, hegarty maths and others.  On the whole, students seem to like them – they used them before closure for homework and for revision, and it’s a cherished strand of continuity in a time of upheaval.

These websites offer a soothing reminder of the life before lockdown; you are doing your maths homework (even though it is now classwork) in exactly the way that you did before life changed so much.

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by Jon Dunning (May 2020)

Jon set an imaginative task during school closure to his Year 7 class: “Ask me two questions about what we’ve studied in this topic. If you feel confident you know everything, think of two imaginative questions you could ask a mathematician about negative numbers.”

Below some brilliantly imaginative questions, and Jon’s answers to his class.  Will this work with any other topic? 

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What does the ‘FACT’ key on a calculator do?

I am going to share here a lesson I teach in the classroom and will then show how I have adapted it to be carried out by pupils by themselves at home during lockdown.

This works with the new Classwiz calculators (of any type) and the older versions of the fx-83, fx-85, etc.

I put the calculator under a visualiser and point out the ‘FACT’ command.

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by Livia Mitson (April 2020)

One of the problems with maths being a subject that everyone has to study is that lots of people get fed up with it.  Some get fed up with it at primary school; others just don’t get on with algebra.

But there is a massive difference between school maths and maths.

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By Cordelia Myers (April 2020)

In my last blog post I wrote about the sorts of mathematics parents and children might be able to do together and the ways we might be able to use different types of tasks to build mathematical thinking skills and reasoning.  I finished by saying:

I’m not brave enough to suggest we abandon our curriculum but could we intersperse it with activities such as these? A week of videos and a week of alternative activities away from the screen. If it needs to be monitored perhaps a photo would do?

At the Cambridge Maths Hub we have been pondering our own response to this challenge and how we might be able to help.

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by Cordelia Myers (April 2020)

Teachers are used to change. The way schools have adapted to the current crisis is breathtaking. Think back three weeks ago when there were only vague whispers of a shutdown and now we are confined to our homes, allowed out just once a day. Schools did not pause to take a breath. Without hesitation we have set up online learning with schedules for the day, directed students to appropriate websites, received instructions on how to monitor “attendance”, offer feedback, make adjustments to adhere to new child protection guidance .. it goes on.

Having now had two weeks of this I think it is worth pausing to reflect. How is it working out?

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by Livia Mitson (April 2020)

“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door”

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by Jo Cayley (March 2020)

For the past 10 years I have organised an annual maths week at my school, a small village primary school with about 90 pupils in 4 classes.  Being a small school, the children are used to mixing up for various special days such as art days and book days.  We also have buddy systems which mean the Year 6s often help out their Reception and Year 1 buddies and the Year 5s act as play leaders at break times.  Maths week has become a highlight of the school calendar and is something the children and parents look forward to and comment on having a positive impact.

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