Mrs P Pilfers (1)

One area of my practice that I'm not very good at is writing resources.  I would much rather find something already written and tweak it for my needs.  Nothing serves this purpose better than a regenerating worksheet on Excel (other spreadsheet programmes are available).  During a recent scour of the mathsnet, I came across these absolute nuggets.  They are from the South Yorkshire Maths Hub and it's their Rainbow Arithmetic Materials.  There are starter questions in a whole range of difficulties as well as an adaptable worksheet covering all the levels available in the starter questions workbook.  The resources can be found here.

Within the department we are currently using them as starters for S3 and S4.  These worksheets cover a lot of the non calculator skills required by our N4 and N5 candidates and it is historically a weak area we're trying to address year on year.  Pupils are really responding to them and are slowly working their way through the levels.

Until my next pilfering session.

Reading in Threes (1)

I want to start a 'regular' feature on the blog - three blog posts/articles that I've read.  I don't know how frequently these posts will come but I'm hoping they will help me to write more frequently and also allow me to keep a nice record of what I've been reading.  I am also in need of a name for this series of posts.


I really liked this post from Mark Enser - The Ritual of Teaching
In this post Mark discusses some practices in classrooms, how these have become a required element of all lessons in some schools and advocates for teachers to practice in their classrooms what they know to work.



This is also a great one from Ben Newmark - Ten Principles for Great Explicit Teaching. 
Here Ben chronicles his journey to improve his teaching through explicit instruction.  This is not a maths specific post but this is definitely a post worth reading for an insight into making explicit teaching work as effectively as possible.  It has also been very kindly illustrated by Oliver Caviglioli.

I really like Tom Sherrington's blog and this post - Principles of Effective Teaching is a good one.

Tom outlines 12 principles for effective teaching and briefly explains them.  I especially like what he has to say about behaviour, teaching to the top and planning.  He references a few lists collated by other sources and then gives his own research free and driven by his gut.

Some extras:

The NCETM have just published their Secondary Mastery assessments and there are some nice questions in there.

If you haven't already you should check out the Teacher Tapp app.  

Every day at 3.30 the app notifies you to answer three questions.  The purpose of which is to gather information about teachers, their working conditions and what they spend their time doing.  As a 'reward' for answering their three questions, the app shares the results from the previous day and gives you a 'tip' which is normally in the form of a quick blog post or article to read.  I have certainly read some very enjoyable and informative posts through the app.

Some Things I'm Struggling with

This year I have a new post.  I am a Maths Development Officer based in my school.  My remit includes but is not limited to developing our new BGE course with the hopes that it seamlessly feeds into senior phase; researching, observing and sharing best practice in maths teaching; developing relationships with parents to help support pupils in maths; diagnostic assessment and intervention teaching with S1 pupils and analysing data to measure impact.  As well as those duties I am also teaching two S1 classes who are in mixed ability sets.

I have been working my way through the S1 year group performing diagnostic assessments and they have shown in video what the department and I knew was going on for some of these pupils.  Where I am really struggling is how do we ensure in a mixed ability class, where whole class teaching is the method of delivery, that we accommodate the needs of pupils who are in Early level right up to those pupils who are very secure at level 2 and ready for the challenge of level 3 (if they haven't already accessed parts of level 3)?  I'm not sure if I'm writing this post as a rhetorical and next year I'll be able to write a post and talk about the progress we made or if I'm looking for someone to give me the answer.  We do have intervention lessons in place for these pupils, so I guess the next thing I'm struggling with is how to make the best of these intervention sessions so that they have impact?  I'm not naive enough to believe intervention lessons can make up for being 3+ years behind where they should be but I need them to close that gap.

If anyone can help me, either by offering a school visit or general advice I'd love to hear from you.  I will set myself a reminder for in a years time to revisit this post and update on our progress.

Preserving a Memory

I am writing this blog post so that I can always remember this conversation that I had with a pupil.  I want to remember it for two reasons: what this pupil said to me resonated so much with my experiences as a pupil and also left me deeply touched.

The pupil in question is applying to study maths at university with the intention of becoming a maths teacher.  We were discussing her UCAS application, teacher training and encouraging positive attitudes towards maths.  During this conversation she told me she wanted to come back and work in our school.  When I asked her why, she replied with 'I know what difference a good teacher makes and a school like this needs teachers like that'.  As a former pupil of the same school, I know exactly what she was talking about.  I had an incredible maths teacher and she really sparked my love of maths.  My life may have taken a very different direction had it not been for her.  Great teachers really make the difference for young people and their life choices.

When I left my school as a pupil I thought my journey at the school was over and I wouldn't ever be back but 6 years later there I was, this time as a teacher.  After this conversation and many other like it, I know exactly why I came back...for kids like her.  I've taught her for 3 years and during that time she has really blossomed as a mathematician.  I know it could have happened with any other teacher but it is a privilege to be a part of that.  There is something magical about the kids I work with.  I also know lots of other teacher's experience similar relationships with pupils but I think we always think there is something special about our kids...just like parents.  All I know for sure is the relationships I form with pupils are 50% of why I love my job.  The other 50% is getting to talk about maths all day.

#MathsWeekScotland Round Up

Today concludes Maths Week Scotland for my school.  And boy did we have a busy week.

On Monday, the Numeracy and STEM Prefect Team organised an after school scavenger hunt for S4 - 6 pupils. Using problems from the UKMT maths challenges, Chris Smith's maths newsletter and other bits and pieces they put together a loop around the school.  The first team with a correct loop won some prizes but all the participants were treated to pizza.  The numbers were small which the prefect team felt was quite manageable but everyone had a good time.  The prefects pitched the problems at a good level and every team was able to make their way round the loop.

On Tuesday, the S1 - 3 pupils were treated to a Fun Maths Roadshow.  Twenty five maths problems were placed around our concourse and pupils had to work in pairs to solve them before moving on to another one.  I was also incredibly delighted to get some parent volunteers to come in and assist with the roadshow.  Comments from the pupils have been very positive about the roadshow with the S3 year group complaining when I told them that they're time was up.  Music to a maths teachers ears - pupils complaining when it's time to finish doing maths.  It's amazing what you can learn about pupils when you take them out a classroom setting.  One pupil in particular spent almost the whole two hour session on one puzzle because he was determined to get it.  In the classroom, he is very quick to give up.  Moving forward, I will use this to encourage him in his maths education.

On Thursday, the S4 - 6 pupils had a visit and presentation from two local companies, CRC Evans Offshore and Ross-shire Engineering.  Both of these companies came to speak to the pupils about the importance of maths in their workplaces.  A lot of what they had to say I'm sure will stick with a lot of pupils.  What stuck with me was the following:

• Employers may not need their employees to be able to carry out calculations but they must understand what the conclusions of these calculations mean and how to respond to them
• During business meetings, the inability to carry out on the spot calculations undermines a business partner or clients confidence in your abilities particularly in negotiations.
• Pythagoras and Trigonometry are used by some engineers on an almost daily basis.

Thursday also saw the first ever Parents' Puzzle Night at Alness.  Parents were treated to some classic puzzles and brain teasers along with cake.  In advance of this event, I created a powerpoint and then parents were given whiteboards so they didn't have to worry about making mistakes.  I know that some pupils will definitely be getting some puzzles to do at home from their parents now, especially since Mum and Dad can show off that they know the answers.  It was a nice informal evening with some unexpected senior pupil guests (apparently they were not happy that parents were getting all of the fun).  There is some work to be done on raising the profile of this event but I am positive that next year it could be bigger and better.

Over the past few weeks, I have been slowly adding some videos on to the school Facebook page to support parents who want to help with maths and numeracy at home.  The video I put up for Maths Week is quite a long one on Mental Calculation and Multiple Strategies.  Thankfully I had some keen S2 pupils to help with this one and their nerves didn't get the better of them.  I'm going to add to this one with a video of how we use the technique in the classroom to hopefully show parents how they can complement what we do in school at home.

I'm not going to lie, Maths Week has been exhausting but in the loveliest way.  Seeing enthusiasm for maths in our pupils makes it all worth it.  And maybe we will have changed some attitudes towards maths or maybe not, but our department got to showcase their love and passion of maths and take the rest of the school along with them for one week at least.  That is a win for me.

#MathsConf12 Reflections

I'm so delighted to finally be reflecting on a MathsConf.  Hopefully, it is the first of many.  This past Saturday I had the delight of attending and presenting at MathsConf12 in Dunfermline.  An excellent addition to the Scottish maths conference calendar.  I went to three excellent sessions and delivered a very intimate workshop myself on 'My Best of Twitter and Other Online Finds'.  I will attempt to recap the day and provide my own reflections and hopefully how I'm going to change my practice.

The day started with a welcome from Mark McCourt (@Emaths) followed by a speed dating session.  It was lovely to get to share resources with other practitioners and discuss teaching practice in an intimate setting.  I certainly got some things to think about using in my own teaching.

Next were the workshops  

The first session I attended was with the lovely Darren McKinnon (@dazmck) on '10 Things Every Maths Teacher Should Know'.  The workshop was an excellent balance of ethos, research and practice.  Darren's 10 are as follows plus my interpretation of what he was saying (which in advance will be flawed, sorry for butchering it Darren!)

1. We, not You

A teachers and their class are a team.  It is much more empowering for pupils if they know you are along for the ride with them and you are as invested in their success as they are.  Language is the key to developing those vital relationships with pupils.

2. The Curse of Knowledge

As teachers, we know what we know.  We know how everything all makes sense and links together as Darren was saying - we know the tune.  When we initially teach something all our pupils are hearing is a series of taps - they have no idea what we song we are singing.  We have to be so careful when teaching that we are not asking pupils to learn a whole song rather than it's individual parts.  I loved this analogy as it is so logical, how could you argue with it.

3. Memory is the Residue of Thought

Of course, Daniel Willingham got a mention in here.  We need to plan lessons what for our pupils will think about because that is what they will remember and learn and that's why 'active' lessons where pupils are having 'fun' don't lead us to the success we think it should.  Our pupils are thinking about the wrong thing. Being successful is fun for pupils, if we make them better at maths they will find the 'fun' in it.  Is fun really what we're looking for though?  Is it not motivation to be better?  And does that not come from being successful in learning what you're supposed to be learning?

4. Cognitive Activation Strategies

What Active Learning should have been called so that people in education wouldn't think it means getting kids out of their seats.  We're talking about highly effective teaching practices that make pupils think and not dancing around a room or making paper aeroplanes so that we can calculate the speed at which they fly.

5. Cognitive Load Theory

I can't even attempt to distill what Darren was trying to put across here without sounding like a complete know nothing but my general gist is that we must be mindful of how much of our pupils' working memories is taken up carrying out tasks that should be more automatic for them and as such make it incredibly difficult for them to fully grasp any new content.  For more reading on Cognitive Load, Greg Ashman's Blog is an excellent place to start or Craig Barton's (@MrBartonMaths) podcast with him is an excellent introduction.

6. We need to take planning seriously

We need to give up planning for a single lesson and instead plan a series of lessons.  Only over time will we know whether or not pupils have learnt anything or not.  One lesson is not a good indication of learning.  Again, further reading can be done at Kris Boulton's Blog

7. Beware Shortcuts 

Nix the Tricks got a nice wee plug here but it's message still needs to be spread.  We shouldn't teach tricks just to make sure a pupil can do something.  We need them to know why.

8. The Benefits of Low Stakes Testing

I'll go into more depth on this one since it was my second workshop further down.

9. Stop Worshipping Past Papers

My favourite quote of the day came from this portion of Darren's workshop. 'The level of analysis we do on past papers is only useful if we plan on giving pupils the exact same past paper'.  Our pupils need to be better prepared for any question and not just ones that have been similar to previous exams.  If all of the drama around N5 has taught us anything is that pupils and teachers are relying too much on past papers and not thoroughly learning the content.

10. We're Never Done

We can and should all do better.  We should expect more from our pupils.  We should not dumb down our explanations to make it easier for pupils.  They should know what a numerator and a denominator is.  If they can learn the name of chemical elements and and the different types of cloud they can use proper mathematical language.

Overall, very thought provoking and definitely leads me to some additional reading.

My second workshop was with Neil Tilston (@MrTilstonMaths) and his session on Low Stakes Assessment.  This is something that I introduced to Higher and N5 towards the end of the session last year and I really felt that it made a huge difference to pupil's overall attainment.  I was very interested to hear how Neil was using it as it is a very different approach.  First off, Neil has been using these assessments consistently with classes across the year, a four question test every week.  He plans single topic assessments on work that the class have not covered in a few weeks.  He records the scores for pupils, hands back the tests and goes over it.  He makes sure that pupils are aware that it is a test for them, whether they do well or not so well, the reaction from him will be the same - 'here's your test back'.  After a few weeks he has a wealth of data on pupils that allow him to accurately complete tracking and monitoring reports, raise any concerns about pupil attainment and plan follow up homeworks and further tests.  This is something I would like to roll our across our department so hopefully after hearing Neil talk, I'll be able to convince more in the department that it would be beneficial.  Already, I know how I plan to change my practice following this session.

Due to a technical problem with my laptop, I wasn't able to participate in the TweetUp - next time for sure.  My workshop followed after lunch so I needed to make sure I was set up for that.

My final workshop of the day was with the fabulous Chris Smith (@aap03102).  Chris is Scotland's own little comedy mathematician and musician.  Again, he delivered a fabulous workshop on all the wonders he has purchased from EBay and uses in his classroom.  Personal favourites were the multiplication monkey and the unhelpful calculator.  With all the stuff he brought though, I'm surprised he has room to fit his kids into his classroom.  It wouldn't be a Chris Smith session without a sing song so we ended with a parody of Backstreet Boys 'I want it that way' fittingly titled I bought it on EBay.  A fun way to end an excellent day.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day.  All the time that was planned for attendees to chat was very much appreciated and seeing some familiar faces made the day even better.  Bring on #MathsConf17.

This year's highlights doesn't quite cover this post #inspiration

I originally planned for this post to be a highlights of the year post but as I started thinking back over this year it was clear that I had many highlights but I also had a lot of times when I felt really inspired by other teachers and really in love with being a teacher.  There really are so many people who have made this year magical so I don't mean to exclude anyone, apologies if I do.  I also haven't mentioned any of the incredible moments I had with pupils this year, that's probably another post all of its own.

During the October holidays I was invited down to Hillhead by Chris McGrane as he had organised a visit from Bruno Reddy...I know right! The Bruno Reddy! I first heard the name Bruno Reddy from Mr Barton's Maths podcast and was so motivated by the interview, there was no way I was going to pass up that invitation.  The visit did not disappoint.  I went home from the trip so inspired to improve my teaching and to share with my department, not only by what Bruno shared but also by what Chris and the department at Hillhead have been doing (see previous posts for gushing on this).  The department at Hillhead were so welcoming and friendly too, I felt like I just fit in.

In December, I found myself the sole member of my department standing for a HMIe inspection.  Apparently, it was a stressful time...mostly I was just tired. The Saturday before the visit I attended the final day of the authority's leadership course for my cohort.  After congratulating Mark Jones on the outcome of his inspection the previous week, I shared the predicament that I was in with him.  Without hesitation, he talked about finding a way to lend me one of his maths teachers.  In the end it wasn't feasible but the offer alone was enough.  It reminded me exactly when I needed it that we are all a team.  No matter what school we work in, what authority we work for, we all strive for the same thing - better outcomes for our young people. Just what I needed to get me through an incredibly challenging week.

In February, I took another trip down the A9 to visit Chris at Hillhead but this time Gary Lamb from St Andrew's let me stop in and check out what he was doing.  There are so many things from both of these visits that we will be looking to use in the department but the best part was being in classes and watching excellent maths teaching sitting next to and talking to young people who enjoyed maths.  In Gary's class, I was sat next to an absolute darling of a pupil who had obvious enthusiasm for the subject...unless you mentioned the black worksheet, then he got scared.  Definitely one of my favourite conversations this year.

In March, I presented at the Stirling Maths Conference with Julie Morgan (again, see a previous post).  What a time to be a maths teacher!  If you listen to Chris Smith speak and don't feel inspired, there are no words for that.  I also loved that I got to meet so many of the twitter tweeps who challenge me to be a better teacher.

There is no doubt about it, there are times when this job will kick you in the gut, but those times are bearable when they are outweighed by the times that teaching hits you in the major feels.  I am so lucky to have had the experiences this year that I've had, to know the people that I now know and to still be unashamedly in love with teaching.

Further Explorations with Algebra Tiles

Today I used algebra tiles with S3 to complete the square.  As I started the lesson, I almost forgot I could use the tiles but I'm glad I caught myself.  I'm aware this would be a more fun blog post if I had photos of the class using them so when I have the class again on Wednesday I'll try to remember to get some.  Also for showing the tiles on the board I used Jonathan Hall's (@StudyMaths) AMAZING MathsBot Algebra Tiles

To start, I gave the pupils a quadratic, all terms positive, and asked them to arrange the tiles into a square.  Quickly they worked out that the quadratic wouldn't make a perfect square and there were tiles left over (I know that I should have started with some that were - improvement for next time).  Next we looked at quadratics where they were short of tiles at the end.  Pupils were happy with these types of questions after a few examples.  At this point we were just playing with the tiles and we weren't writing anything down.  I will do that in the next lesson.

Where we are going to have to spend more time is quadratics with a negative x term.

I'll work through an example and attempt to show you the process I went through with pupils.

I'll use the quadratic

Once pupils have the correct tiles in front of them, they should attempt to turn the tiles into a square.

At this point, my pupils told me that they didn't have enough tiles to complete the square and that the answer is

What they had failed to notice was that the empty space that's left should be filled with positive tiles.

This is the point at which they started to get confused so we did and will be doing a lot of practice here.  Because I have added four positive tiles, I need to add four negative tiles so that I haven't changed the value of my quadratic.  I had to explain with multiple examples here that the positive and negative tiles have been added but they make zero so have not changed the value of my quadratic overall.  This is also why I've grouped them so that they look the same,

This means that my quadratic of

 in completing the square form.

I'm still very early in my use of Algebra Tiles but so far the experience has been very positive and the pupils are coming round to them more.  If anyone reading this is more confident with using the tiles and has a better method for using them for this purpose I'd love to hear about it.  I'm very keen to use them better and more effectively.

The Beginning of my Journey with Mainpulatives

This year, due to a grant from the Scottish Attainment Challenge, I was able to purchase manipulatives for the maths department.  When they arrived, I was like a kid at Christmas.  Even the fact that I'd messed up the order a little bit did nothing to dampen my spirits.  Over the next year or so, the department and I will spend a significant amount of time looking at how we can use these manipulatives effectively but one of the things I've already start using after being inspired by this video from Mark McCourt @EmathsUK, is Algebra Tiles.  I have used them with two classes so far, well that is after I let the higher class play with them, and the response was quite unexpected.  My S3 class hated them.  We used them to look at multiplying double brackets.  I got lots of 'why can't you just tell us what to do'.  That reaction was pretty surprising because I don't believe I ever just tell them what to do but apparently that's how they see my teaching.  I persisted with the tiles for 2 periods getting them to set up an area model and use the tiles to create the rectangle in the blank space.  By the end of the second period, I knew they'd had enough of the tiles but about 70% of them could explain why the double brackets multiply out the way they do and when we moved on to the more formal method, the majority of them opted to use an area model to demonstrate their working.  The best thing happened today though when I gave them the quadratic and asked them to factorise it.  I explained nothing as to how it was done.  Some of them messed around with the algebra tiles to get it to factorise, others used the area model in their jotters and the rest were able to do it by inspection.  It was pretty amazing.  I've taught factorising a fair few times now but never with this ease.  Maybe everyone else has this experience all the time but I was quite blown away by it.  Of course, I know the test of how well they've learnt it is can they replicate it again in the future but I feel quite positive about their ability to do that.  My S2s had a very different response.  They were interested in using the tiles and having picked up on the things that tripped up the S3 class, I changed how I introduced them slightly which seems to have helped.  The rest of the lessons were pretty similar.  Setting up an area model and filling in the blank space.  They were quicker than the S3 class to pick up what was happening and a lot more of them were comfortable multiplying the brackets out more formally.  It'll be interesting to see how they take to factorising when we get to it but I'm pretty confident that they will pick that up with the same ease that they seem to have picked up multiplying brackets and of course, I'll test them in the near future to see if it has stuck.

I'm going to be honest, I never really experienced maths as a pupil in this visual way and until recently (last 3 years or so) have not understood the significance of a visual to maths teaching for the higher attaining pupils but as I'm learning to be a better teacher, I understand the significance of it more and more.  If I had been taught this way, I definitely would have understood more as that's what's happening as I am teaching this way, and I also would have understood a lot more when my maths teacher said maths was about understanding patterns.  I loved maths in school so she didn't need to convince me of it's awesomeness but I loved the logic and the structure of it.  It's only now that I'm teaching it that I appreciate its elegance and beauty.  I'd love to pass that on to my pupils.

Book Recommendations and Reading List

The idea for this came from the conference yesterday.  We talked about professional reading and I wanted to put down my recommendations for what practitioners should read but also those books that are on my reading list.  This list will be updated and all the links will take you to Amazon.

Book Recommendations
100 Things Awesome Teachers Do - William Emeny
Mathematical Mindsets - Jo Boaler
The Elephant in the Classroom - Jo Boaler
I recommend the two Jo Boaler books not because I agree with her but because she is widely quoted for her research and opinions into maths education and if you are going to either defend or oppose her, you better know exactly what she is saying first hand.
Embedded Formative Assessment - Dylan Wiliam
Seven Myths about Education - Daisy Christodoulou
Seven Myths is possibly one of the best education books I've read.  It takes commonly held beliefs in education in the UK and clearly and succinctly presents the research that dispels them.  A must read for all teachers.

Reading List
Visible Learning - John Hattie
Outstanding Maths Lessons - Mike Ollerton
Getting the Buggers to Add Up - Mike Ollerton
Yes, But Why? - Ed Southall

What Does This Look Like In The Classroom: Bridging The Gap Between Research And Practice - Carl Hendrick and Robin MacPherson

Always on the look out for recommendations so feel free to send some my way.

Thoughts on #SMC2017

So yesterday I attended and delivered a workshop at the Scottish Maths Conference.  I've been pretty vocal about the fact that it was the best one yet.  I always enjoy the conference but this year it went to a whole new level.

Firstly our keynote speaker was Chris Smith @aap03102 - a practising teacher in Scotland.  In the 30 years of the conference, he was the first teacher to deliver the keynote.  What a statement about how highly Chris is thought of amongst the teaching community.  His address was on point.  All of the humour that you would expect from a moment with Chris and a snapshot of the calibre of teacher he is.  I've said it before but I'm even more certain of it now. HE is what the Scottish Government need to pay attention to if they want to raise the profile of maths across the country.

Secondly, I delivered a workshop alongside Julie Morgan @fractionfanatic on using Twitter to enhance professional learning (slides here).  It was so fun to deliver a presentation with someone who has benefited as much from Twitter as I have.  And thank you so much to our special community for their support with our presentation.  Hopefully we've encouraged a few more teachers to join us because there really is something quite magical about the way we push each other and the support we provide each other even in the most implicit way.  I really do love our community.  Speaking on a personal level, I am a better teacher for being part of the #ScotMTBOS but during the most trying time of my career the messages of support were invaluable and are probably the reason I didn't just throw in the towel.

Thirdly, I got myself along to see Chris McGrane @ChrisMcGrane84.  I am a HUGE fan of Chris' and I think the work he is doing at Hillhead is one of the most exciting things in Scottish Education right now.  I've been extremely lucky to spend a lot of time with Chris so was very familiar with a lot of messages that were in his presentation.  That being said, hearing it again, I still got so much out of it.  It's focused my attention onto different aspects of his curriculum development and will certainly be invaluable moving our own curriculum at Alness forward.  If you have not had the chance to hear Chris speak, you need to rectify that as soon as possible.  He will validate so many of your misgivings about current practices in schools and not just with his 'beliefs' but with hard evidence.  I will make the choice to see him speak again and again.

Fourthly, I finally got the chance to not only meet Michael Allan @mrallanmaths but learn from his experience of using OneNote with his classes and also for his own organisation. I'm highly impressed with the details that have gone into his use of OneNote.  His workshop was incredibly informative and I will be making changes to my practice based on his workshop.  Thank you Michael.

Finally, I had the pleasure of hearing Lee Gray @mrgraymath (he apologises for the lack of an 's') and his 'Making Learning Stick' workshop.  Although there were similarities between Lee and Chris' workshops, it was not a wasted 50 minutes. Lee focused a lot more on research but in a hugely engaging way.  He is an incredibly passionate practitioner working in a challenging environment.  His love for what he does was apparent but so was his frustration at how circumstances circumvent our hardest efforts.  The honest way that he threw out so much of what is educational policy was liberating and I definitely felt sighs of relief in the room when he had the evidence to back his opinion.

My absolute favourite part of the day though was meeting so many of my fellow practitioners, particularly the #ScotMTBOS community.  People who are so dedicated to our profession and maths that they would give up a Saturday to get better at delivering it,  So inspiring.

Things that were clear this year: we are moving to being a more evidence driven profession; we are going to start hitting back at silly policies with no educational benefits; and we are teaching maths in the most exciting time to be a maths teacher.  I am already so excited for next year.

A More Grown Up Blog

So I have moved my blog from Tumblr since this is a more grown up platform and hopefully more flexible with how I want to use it.  You can access my previous posts by clicking the link in this post.