your learning, your future
your learning, your future Hello and welcome to Shirebrook Maths department’s 28th Newsletter. 28 is a perfect number so hopefully this issue can be as close to perfection as possible. Explain or Discover Should be pupils be explained concepts in Maths then encouraged to practise using those concepts or should they be given activities which enable them to discover the concepts for themselves? This is one of the fundamental questions in Maths teaching. I read an interesting blog recently about an activity to encourage pupils to discover congruence. It revolves around the simple question, “How many pentominos can you make?” where a pentomino is a shape made by joining 5 congruent squares as shown on the left. The concept of congruence is necessary to avoid “double counting”. I would really recommend reading the blog post in full here as it offers an interesting discussion on these two styles of teaching. Which one do you prefer? More Maths Gems Another Maths Gem post has been posted here. The stand-out take-away from it is the website artfulmaths.com. This is a website full of resources and lesson ideas to create beautiful works of Maths. Things like cardiods, curves of pursuit, Celtic knots and impossible objects are all there. Check it out. With Arts week coming up it might be nice to use some of these activities to support our friends in the Art department. Change at Ofsted Big news in the world of education with Sir Michael Wilshaw ending his reign as the top dog at Ofsted. He has overseen significant changes at the inspectorate, most specifically through his push to ensure that Ofsted no longer judge lessons and to ensure that there is no “Ofsted-style” of teaching. Andrew Old has written a thorough and balance look back at Sir Michael’s legacy here.
His replacement is former Head of Ofqual (the exam board regulator) Amanda Spielman. Some media reports have focused on the fact that she has never been a teacher herself and that she attended a private school as a pupil. Nevertheless in her role in setting up the Ark academy chain (now one of the most successful academy chains in the country) should definitely count in her favour. Here is a blog looking in a bit more detail at her life and here is another piece from #teachertoolkit outlining the 5 things he’d like her to pursue over the next few years. On Display What is the point of displays in school? To decorate? To inform? To present work? A combination of all 3? Displays may not seem like an important issue to discuss in schools however what is on display does say something about the priorities of a school. Displays take a lot of time and energy to put up, two resources that all schools need to optimise. There is an interesting article here looking at the debate around displays and questioning how they can be as effective as possible. New GCSE so far… Speak to most Maths teachers and there is concern about the impact that the New GCSE is going to have, particularly on our current year 10 pupils. It is important to consider why the changes were made and whether or not they are having the intended impact. Jo Morgan nicely sums up the effects of these changes and looks at what the future might hold for Maths education in Britain. Challenge Here is this week’s puzzle, a variety of the magic square taken from this week’s Maths Gem post. Each cell must contain a factor of the expression at the end of its row and column.
His replacement is former Head of Ofqual (the exam board regulator) Amanda Spielman. Some media reports have focused on the fact that she has never been a teacher herself and that she attended a private school as a pupil. Nevertheless in her role in setting up the Ark academy chain (now one of the most successful academy chains in the country) should definitely count in her favour. Here is a blog looking in a bit more detail at her life and here is another piece from #teachertoolkit outlining the 5 things he’d like her to pursue over the next few years. On Display What is the point of displays in school? To decorate? To inform? To present work? A combination of all 3? Displays may not seem like an important issue to discuss in schools however what is on display does say something about the priorities of a school. Displays take a lot of time and energy to put up, two resources that all schools need to optimise. There is an interesting article here looking at the debate around displays and questioning how they can be as effective as possible. New GCSE so far… Speak to most Maths teachers and there is concern about the impact that the New GCSE is going to have, particularly on our current year 10 pupils. It is important to consider why the changes were made and whether or not they are having the intended impact. Jo Morgan nicely sums up the effects of these changes and looks at what the future might hold for Maths education in Britain. Challenge Here is this week’s puzzle, a variety of the magic square taken from this week’s Maths Gem post. Each cell must contain a factor of the expression at the end of its row and column.
