should we set pupils in year 7?

Most schools set their students in or around Year 7 but there is still a large number of teachers who choose not to, some of whom are quite vocal on their reasoning. See mixed attainment maths, for example. We discussed it in a recent #mathschat too, when we looked at plans for next year’s Year 7. …

A conversation about conversions

In summer, I had the pleasure of accompanying some students on a school trip to Europe.  Mr Mattock kindly stepped in to look after #mathschat while I was away. This is a blog that I’ve had on the back burner since then. While we were waiting at a public travel hub in France (a place …

Dialogic teaching

outline / content

Science capital

?Outline / content

Learning formula just takes a bucket.

I've written a lot about great teaching ideas or great assessment ideas that I've seen in action when visiting school and teachers. This term I have been visiting my training teachers in their placement schools and stumbled across a fantastic idea for teaching formulae. Allow me to introduce the formula bucket. Trainee teachers have both the benefit and …

Practical Science – outline of research

research outline Trainee research

Relating Research to Practice

Practical Science (*) science capital Dialogic Teaching

A good department leader… listens

I remember a while ago having a discussion with my sister, she is the engineer and for a while she had a job making sure the wings stayed on aeroplanes.  I know, you'd think that this post was already filled. I was reminded of a conversation we had about how engineers make decisions about complex …

Teaching Maths teaching to science teachers

I teach a lot of different learners: primary children, secondary children, post-16 students, teachers and NQT teachers. But on a Tuesday during the Autumn term I got to go up to the big city and teach the new ITT trainees at a university.  I was asked to take a session with the science trainees on improving numeracy. …

Helping pupils get stuck

I first saw the 'head, heart, hand' approach used when I was a student. At the time it was mostly used in relation to developing ecoliteracy and to encourage people