Why aren't they getting it?

Three lessons on solving equations with a lower ability set should hopefully ensure they can get liner equations with two variables in them. Three students aren't getting it, they're not any worse than anyone else and should be solid.

It's not a new class to me but there are some characters who have come up from an even lower set and I've been spending some time with them more than I should. I also think that I've underestimated the students who have come up.

I reckon it's because I've sat the kids that I know next to each other assuming they're stronger, as I'm not sure it's the case I think I need to mix it up a bit....must check up on them though.

Easter is Upon us

So its time to start revising. It's the most important part of the year so every year 9, 10 and 11 lesson will include some past paper GCSE questions and it's the time we all need to stop doing a good job and start 'teaching the test'. No need to whine, this is the job. Getting kids to pass the exam.

This year I'm going to something a little different.

1) Let them know how to study themselves. Each class is going to get an hour of maths study skills so they can do it themselves. Detailed and more accurate guidance on the use of livemaths.co.uk which is what we use.

2) More emphasis on vocabulary-particularly in Statistics there are so many examples of students who simply don't know what the word means so they get confused. It's a real weakness of my teaching and I need to do this more regularly anyway but I'm going to get students to do their own word wall which I'll make myself refer to each lesson. If I use then so will they.

That's my focus while doing revision this year-already printed out the questions on boxplots for the year 9s.

I can feel myself getting tired already.

Formalising

We have a pretty rubbish consultant, employed by the local council rather than the school which use them, who nobody really likes. She seems to think that merely playing games and having activites which are rich is good enough in a maths department. It is not.

The trouble with maths teaching in this country is a focus on process and a narrow range of skills which is desired. So all this week so low ability year 8s did lots of rich activities on sequences and how this could be linked to graph. They drew some lines, they made their own shapes with some blocks and saw links between them and could draw some conclusions from this. Good. Could they answer some exam style questions about sequences? No.

So on Friday they had a very teacher led prescriptive lessons where they simply did the sort of questions they will see in a GCSE exam in two years time. They found the general term, they found the 50th term they had some multiple choice questions, they saw sequences that went up, they saw some that went up by non-integer values-they can now pass an exam.

And our department lives and dies by its results.

Do the rich tasks, let them play games then for then give them the boring stuff. They need it.

Making Something boring Interesting

Today an email from a colleage was roundly taken the piss out of because he sent links of these videos:

Flying Bread

22 Bricks

and suggested they could be used to teach estimating and accuracy. Other than being a little annoyed at the maths department for taking the mick out of something well meaning I was also thought that the email itself was rubbish.

'How about this for teaching accuracy and estimation'

He should know he audience, we are all incredibly busy people with better things to do than interpret what someone might do. The mian reason why maths teaching is so poor in primary schools is simply because the message isn't tailored to the audience (women of child bearing age since you ask), if the bloke who sent the clips to the teachers had also included a message bout how he had used them and if they worked well in his previous classes then people would have been a lot more receptive to him.

I just need to work out how to use them myself now...there's the germ of a good idea there.

So much better....

Today I was out of school all day long at a session aimed at Gifted and Talented children run by a few people who run this perfectably acceptable website. Some parts of the day were great, they introduced a topic on sequences and mapping in a slow methodical manner which really teased out the 'correct' answer from some students who weren't allowed to reveal the rule. They used different, more difficult numbers before encouraging students to write the rule algebraically themselves. I was really geared up for a great day.

This was followed by an hour long lecture where our year 8 children sat and listened to them.

WHAT???

Then they had 90 minutes to do an open ended investigation. Most of them did it for about 45 minutes with little help and weren't sure what to do next, as they were given no instructions they sat and talked to each other. Who could blame them.

Then an interesting part of the day, an hour long conversation about listing questions the students wanted to answer about straight line graphs. I thought this was great, really solid important pedagogy which made link between what they were doing and how 'real' mathematicians operate.

Again....another 90 minute investigation which they could get stuck into for 45 mins.

No real conclusion, no bringing together of results. I doubt there is one child who could say what they learnt today. That would have got a 3 in an ofsted observation.

I should have loved the session today, I think investigations and projects are great. I love giving students the opportunity to investigate their own questions. I also really like straight line graphs. I'm really good at them. what a wasted opportunity though. You can't just leave children with a bunch of questions and expect them to get on with it and find something very meaningful because they might only find something half meaningful. I'm sure our students have half an idea that one of the numbers has something to do with where the lines crosses one of the axis. I doubt they could be really specific about which number did what and why.

Why not formalise what was learnt, why not be a little prescriptive and tell them something after they've some so close to learn something for themselves. I think most of our children left feeling like they were bad at maths because they couldn't put the final piece of the puzzle together.

If the last piece doesn't quite fit, maybe it's better to hammer it in.

I'm so good at teaching.

I gave up a whole lesson to merely writing today. My years 8s bottomish set had just finished a statistical investigation into a football match, had made posters and written and report about the game in addition to collecting and recording the data themselves.

Well today, after a good competitive starter about writing out their 3.5 times tables ('just think of it as repeated addition was a controversial thing I told them) we had a class conversation about what went wrong, what went right and how we would change the investigation if we had to it all over again. After than they wrote up their thoughts in silence. I thought it was a great exercise for them, it was evaluative, not really teacher led, it asked for higher order thinking skills, they had to justify their decisions and explain why they thought what they did. If was meaningful self assessment. As I pointed out to them these were skills which could be used in any classroom, and more importantly, in any situation after.

It was a great way to end off a project and, amazingly, there wasn't one person who muttered 'why are we doing this...this is English'. They were making links between topics and understood why we were doing the task.

Great lesson.

This Week

In addition to normal lessons:

Monday: After school classes until, free periods and lunch taken up with a journalism project, got home planning until after dinner then played football.
Tuesday: After school meetings followed by going boxing gym (I need some tips to keep the year 9s in line)
Wednesday: Enrichment project at a local university getting home late, piano lesson (grade 3 since you ask-until 8.00)
Thursday-Astronomy club after school, meeting with a parent followed with writing year 8 reports
Friday-Decorated my classroom with new posters to make it look decent. Really battered the whiteboard speakers with a John Digweed mix. Member of SLT looked perplexed by noise.
Saturday-Got up at 7.45 to watch my year group play football, went to the Institute of Education library to swot up in preperation for my masters
Sunday-Got up at 7.30 to mark year 11 books, went boxing again. Now to plan my A-level class.

Same again next week.

Aren't I a whiny little martyr.

Must write about maths-it's why I set this blog up.

'Sir.....I'm sorry but this is Bullshit'

Normally that remark would warrant a telling off or even a detention depending on the situation but the apologetic and weary way it was said elicited a laugh from me.

'What do you mean?' I asked Suspicious (who is on the borderline of failing his GCSE).

'Well I just don't see the point of this....'

One and a half lessons of changing the subject on a formula in and he didn't see the point, I sighed. 'Well if we start with this formula, it tells us the cost of hiring a car, however if we.......'

'No, I get that, it's just rubbish though, I want to pass my exam.

'erm....yes. this is going be on it'. All I'm doing is exam style questions (All I ever do with that class in that year is exam style questions-frankly it's all I'm allowed to do. Three X teaching-example, explanation, exercises. But what a good explanation and method I teach)

'But I want to pass with a C'

'erm....yes. What's wrong' as I pointed to the grade B on the board'

'But we're just reversing, that's not difficult'

'Inversing Suspicious, but no. It's not. Look....that's a grade B level work'

'Are you sure, it doesn't seem so'

Amazing and horrible. Here's a boy who's on the point of failing and is able to rearrange a=(b+c^2)/4 to make c the subject.

That's practically an A grade questions. Clearly I'm the best teacher in the whole of East London.

Here's a boy who can do an A grade question really easily and doesn't believe that it's difficult. Clearly there's something wrong with the test.

Probably (hopefully) a bit of both.

My best resource

It's a bit of board outside the office. Here it is.

Each week I put a new openended question on it-usually related tangentially to topics my students would do in class and also open enough for anyone to get started. I've had simple algebra, some probability, all asked in a way which encourage conversation and logical thinking. So far I've got all the puzzles from a great game I played a few years ago called Perplex city. Currently they have to solve a Petals around the rose problem. A timid year 7 was having an argument with a year 11 about this today about how his rule was wrong because it didn't fit every example. It nearly ended in a fight. Good.

If a student gets it right they get 50p and their picture taken to be put up on the board which they take more pride in than actually winning the 50p. I've had crowds of students around the board arguing passionately about why they're right or wrong. It encourages a huge amount of talk in our corridors

The winners are from years 7-11, from lower to high ability. It's simple, it's cheap, it's fun but above more it's engaging and a real focus point of our department and office. Everyone should try something like this.

Good Lesson/Bad Lesson

This year, for the first time, I'm making sure I'm doing more open ended projects with my classes, particularly in Key Stage 3. I'm trying to make sure it's all I do with one of my classes for the rest of the year-a lower ability year 8 class. They won't see a text book this year-they are all rubbish and boring. At times I slip back into giving them a series of closed questions, especially on algebra topics I need to cover but will figure out ways to link these topics to shape and number in the future.

Anyway, for the next three weeks we're doing a project on 'ProZone'. ProZone is a compnay which analyses football matches from a statistical perspective and sells their results to football clubs for an obscene amoun of money. My students know all about the company from their PE lessons and they also know that on Friday they'll be watching the second half of Spurs against Bolton (Lincoln City Vs Chesterfield was soundly rejected by them which I think it a shame) with the overall plan of designing a poster and written report about the Statistics of the game. This lesson they had to plan a data collection sheet, some of the pupils presented what they did to others in the class and others commentated on what they liked and didn't like about the work and, more importantly the problems they would face when recording their data while watching the game. Talk. Talk. Talk. Its only recently that I've been encouraging them to talk about maths identifying it as a weakness in my lessons and they're still not at all used to this way of teaching but slowy they're getting used to communicating mathematically verbally.

I loved this lesson, the students could see an outcome and purpose for what they were doing, they talked openly about each others work and were mainly respectful of each others ideas and opinions. They were able to plan and be forward thinking about their work, skills which can be transferred not only to other lessons but also to beyond the classroom. Great. I'm looking forward to their results and more importantly getting them used to talk about maths-something which is done really infrequently in maths lessons in this country, something I'm more than guilty about myself.

Then onto my intermediate year 11s. They've an exam soon. I told them about substituting values into formulas. I gave them some questions. Some of them did the work. Some of them needed help. Some of them will get the question correct in the exam next week.

They will all have forgotten the skill the week after.

The sad thing is most of the classes I teach are like this be it due to a lack of time to plan appropriately or that there's an exam coming up soon and they need to be taught what's on it. It's not good enough at all and this type of 'traditional' maths teaching is endemic in schools from primary through to A-Level by either lazy, pressured or poorly trained teachers. It's not good enough. It's a misrepresentation of what maths is all about, maths isn't a series of procedures to be remembered and regurgitated, it's a vibrant, logical and expressive way to communicate the world. We over test our students and it results in poor teaching and not enough creative problem solving, communicative tasks. It's a trite and repeated opinion however it's also very true. I don't feel that from years 9 to 11 I could do a 'Prozone' type investigation with my students despite feeling it's the best way for them to learn and be engaged with maths. I fully understand that I live and die as a teacher on my results and I also understand why. It's such a pointless, counterproductive way of doing work.

As my colleague, Irish, like to say 'Pick the Daisies'. She is so right. I had a great lesson with my year 8s and will have a good two weeks with them that's what to remember because they'll remember that lesson for a much longer time than my year 11s will remember theirs.

A depressing conversation

Cocky is in year 11 at the moment, naturally not particularly stupid nor that clever, usually smiling and always in trouble. In year 8 while I was an naive NQT he was pretty enthusiastic about school and a little cheeky, now I hear he's rude to teachers and difficult to teach but now lads like these are the least of my problems.

'Why aren't you in class Cocky' I asked him as I walked into our office while he was hanging about outside looking at a poster. However as I see him walking around the school during the day rather than spending any time in lessons I can guess the answer.

'Got sent out sir' before adding the inevitable 'innit'.

Rather than letting him wander about in the corridor for the next half hour I invited him into the office and let him sit down and proceeded to speak to him about my plans for the half term (going to Scandinavia since you ask) which he seemed to be quite interested as I made him a cup of tea.

Making cups of tea for students isn't typical for me by the way, simply being incredibly generous as it was the last day of term.

'How often a day do you get sent out of class Cocky?'

'Every day....I can't wait before I leave this school'

'So why do you bother turning up' I thought about saying before really asking 'So what do you want to do when you leave'.

'Nothing'

'What are you going to do for money'

'Mum'

'Happy with that'

'Yeah sounds great-I just want to do what I want to do'.

It transpires Cocky's mother was fined £250 as he regularly truanted lessons, at the moment if he isn't in school when he should be the police give him a lift in at a cost of another £250 for the mother per go. His mother doesn't work, hasn't worked for ten years, lives off the dole, has lived in the same council flat she got when she was 17 and has no plans of doing any paid work. All I found out about the father is that he's a 'D*******' who also doesn't work and has never done. Despite living in in Central east London he's never seen the Sea has boasted about taking drugs to other teachers will leave our school in fours months with no hope or desire of getting a job, driving a car, leaving the country to go on holiday, leaving his council estate, joining a band, taking up a sport or anything other than watching TV with his mother. He too plans to go on the dole. This is a life he is looking forward to and smiles with genuine enthusiasm about it.

He goes to a good school. It's miserable this should happen.

Let's talk about me. This is my third year of teaching, behaviour in my classroom is good, I have a mild interest in becoming head of department but enjoying teaching a lot. I'm not a great teacher but getting better as I think more about the needs of my students rather than how I was taught myself. I didn't become a teacher to 'help children' or even because I 'enjoy working with students' (I think they can be quite poor reasons to become a teacher). I became teacher as it was a good career and I care about the public understanding of maths and this is still my first interest however when you teach, anywhere, but particularly in East London or an inner-city environment you can't teach properly unless you understand the context.

Cocky was failed. Mainly by his pathetic excuse for his parents who never gave him the moral or social guidance children need, but also in part by the school (which mainly does an excellent job for the students). Was he taught in an engaging way? Or was he just given a list of questions to do following some guidance? Was he taught any skills which an employer would be interested in? Students need to leave school with a skill to do something...plumbing, IT work, social care...anything. How well was this done? A bright cheeky funny 11 year old turned into a rude funny 16 year old with no ambition and no chance.

This is why I've decided to write about my professional life-a way to think clearly about what I do at work. Mostly I won't be talking about the lives of students, I plan to write more about the teaching of maths, which methods work, the system of education in this country, the masters in mathematical education I'm staring in April however you can only do this well if you attempt to be aware of the kids and their experiences. I'm looking forward to it.