I can’t quite describe how elated I am!  Ignoring last years fiasco, these tests have narrowed the curriculum, the teaching opportunities and pupils enthusiasm for the subject for years.  The league tables that accompanied them often narrowed a school’s focus onto just the key Level 5 boundary pupils.

Can all of that really be gone?  Fingers crossed!

CC image from 713 Avenue on flickr

On reflection the content which we need to deliver has changed little and so with some tweaking our previous scheme of work will suffice in structure.  This statutory change in the manner in which we deliver the content and offer opportunities to put the Maths in context, develop pupils personal skills and link in with other subjects can only be a good thing in my opinion.

There are a number of fantastic resource banks out there full of ‘rich’ mathematical tasks which we could use:

nRich: Hundreds of puzzles and investigations, updated monthly.
Kangaroo Maths: Particularly Using & Applying and Enrichment sections.
Bowland Maths: New resources designed specifically with the new curriculum in mind.
Defence Dynamics: Interactive resources / lesson plans based on real world scenarios from the MoD.

Of particular interest are the Bowland Maths resources, these have been produced by the Bowland Charitable Trust in conjunction with the NCETM.  To quote their site:

‘Bowland Maths makes maths fun for pupils aged 11-14. The aim is to help change pupils’ views of maths by increasing their motivation and enjoyment, which should help increase their confidence and their competence. A second aim is to help teach maths in a different way.

The Bowland Maths materials look very different from most maths teaching materials. They consist of innovative case study problems, each taking 3-5 lessons, designed to develop thinking, reasoning and problem solving skills – as in the revised Key Stage 3 curriculum. Each case study is different, but all provide pupils and teachers with problems that are fun and engaging, while also being a rich maths experience. The case studies are not remotely like answering questions from a book. For Portraits of the case studies, click here.’

As a department we will be reviewing a number of these resources and planning their integration into our teaching over the coming weeks.  I will add more in the future about any particular highlights.

Have you any other links to quality resources to enrich Maths teaching?  How is your department tackling these changes?

To quote:

Computers for Pupils

Computers for Pupils is a £60 million, two-year programme (2006–2008) aimed at helping some of the most disadvantaged secondary school children improve their education and life skills by putting a computer into the home and providing internet connectivity. It aims to narrow the achievement gap between those children and their peers. Up to 100,000 pupils in England are expected to benefit from the initiative.

108 local authorities are involved in the programme, with funding allocated through the Standards Fund Grant. Local authorities identified as having eligible schools and pupils attending in their area have been given funding to make this happen. They are also receiving help and advice covering all aspects of the scheme.

Our school has been allocated 270 laptops, which is obviously a fantastic thing.  However we have nearly 900 pupils so it has also become a somewhat divisive issue.  The allocation has taken into account a number of factors, including something of a post-code lottery.  Explaining to one pupil why they have a laptop and another why they haven’t has been awkward today.

With the possibility of  internet access also being provided in the near future this is overall great news.  We have been making good headway with online homeworks in Maths, using MyMaths and Achieve, and this will dramatically cut the number of pupils who cannot complete these at home.

I haven’t seen the machines yet, as ever with technology I suspect that had they will have missed the boat with the range of excellent low cost laptops that are seeping onto the market such as the eeePC.

I can just imagine the arguments if we tried to enforce this at our school!

I’m still impatiently waiting for my 6 to arrive, they won’t be ordered until the school’s trial of Wi-Fi is underway and as with all things in school that is taking longer than expected

Jonesieboy’s trials have had me waiting even more eagerly.

This worries and saddens me as I can see the quick result of this will be even more aggressive and restrictive censoring of the internet by school network managers. There is so much excellent material available on YouTube and other similar sites it is a shame they are nearly always on the banned list of websites.

I think that this is another knee-jerk reaction by the press and by the out-of-touch teaching unions. It is another example where we should be taking a pro-active stance of educating our pupils in the safe and responsible use of the Internet, rather than just blocking access. Stiff punishments of those responsible for this type of bullying need to be applied as they would for any other form.

Admittedly it does sound like YouTube themselves need to improve there systems for the rapid removal of offending videos.

Technorati Tags: YouTube, Education, Bullying

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