5 Maths Gems #145

Welcome to my 145^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers. 

1. Purposeful Maths

A new website purposefulmaths.com has been created by @pbrucemaths and @mrgreen_maths. This website contains questions which promote mathematical thinking. Everything is free to access, including over fifty 'I do, we do, you do' questions and around 40 accompanying worksheets. A blog post explains how to use the resources.

2. NCETM Checkpoints

Thank you to Richard Perring (@learningmaths) for making me aware of the new Checkpoints resources from the NCETM.

Checkpoints are diagnostic activities that will help teachers assess the understanding students have brought with them from primary school, and suggest ways to address any gaps that become evident.

There’ll be enough for three Checkpoints a week across the whole school year. Professional development seminars will accompany the release of each batch of Checkpoints - the NCETM website explains how to sign up to these seminars. 

3. Angles Resources

Since I totally changed the way I teach angles in parallel lines following the research I did for my Topics in Depth project, I am delighted when I see quality resources for this topic! 

@MrDraperMaths wrote a blog post about reasoning with angles in parallel lines, identifying which line segments are parallel, and questions where you need to add extra parallels in. 

@b_karadia shared some of the slides she uses when teaching angles in parallel lines. These are very clear. I have a similar approach, emphasising the relationship with the transversal. Watch my CPD session on this for an explanation. 

And finally, @ShivMcKenna55 shared her latest curriculum booklet which focuses on angles. This can be accessed via Chris McGrane's website startingpointsmaths.com.

4. Revision Booklet

Thanks to @beckyreedmaths for sharing her Year 7 revision booklet.

I've created a Year 7 revision booklet for end of year exams. All my knowledge organisers are in it for support. Most questions from @Corbettmaths and relevant HegartyMaths listed on the 3rd page. There's an editable version there too. Hope its useful! https://t.co/bZZBsXQEbz. pic.twitter.com/ANCJZpPXH8

— Becks 🌸 (@beckyreedmaths) June 11, 2021

5. Statistical Charts Resource

Thank you to Jamie Copus of Llanwewn High School for emailing me a great statistics resource. It's an exercise in reading information from a variety of charts rather than focusing on each one individually. Students are asked to extrapolate from pie charts, vertical line charts, composite and comparative bar charts. The activity is football based with fictional statistics. There are higher order questions to supplement the task and it can be completed by students unsupported or with guidance as to which chart to use for each question. You can download the resource from TES.

Update

It's been a while since I last blogged. The second half of the summer term is definitely my busiest time of the year because I do the school timetable, and I run assessment week and I'm responsible for end of year reports.

I've been marking all weekend and (for once!) I am really pleased with how my Key Stage 3 students have done in their end of year assessments. I've changed my approach to Key Stage 3 teaching quite significantly over the last few years - I will speak about this in my upcoming mathsconf talk.

My school changed the way we do end of year assessments this year, using single tier assessments in Year 7, 8 and 9 for the first time. By having every student in each year group do the same assessment, we now have consistent, high quality data to help us determine next year's groupings. I was always really unhappy using two tiers of assessment at Key Stage 3 as I felt it led to a lack of mobility (i.e. students in the 'foundation' classes getting stuck there). We were worried that the single tier papers would be difficult to write, but it has worked really well. The range of attainment in a comprehensive school is vast, so assessments need to be accessible yet contain the right amount of challenge.

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Did you catch my last two blog posts?

• Substitution - a Dose of Don post from Anne Watson
• Autonomy vs Consistency - where I explore some of the arguments around maths teachers' autonomy in lesson planning

If you're a Key Stage 3 maths teacher, please don't forget to complete my survey, which will close at the end of term. Some of the results so far are rather surprising, and I will be sharing them in my #mathsconf26 workshop on 10th July. You can get a ticket here.

Over May half-term I actually managed to meet up with some of my favourite Twitter maths teachers in person! It was lovely. I know we're all a long way from being 'back to normal' but this felt like a step in the right direction. A few of us have tickets to go to ResearchED in September - I really hope it goes ahead! I've missed in-person conferences so much.

I've also booked tickets to see mathematical poet Harry Baker in October. He was the after-dinner speaker at the MEI Conference a couple of years ago and I loved it, so I am very keen to see him again. He's also available to visit schools.

In other news, at the end of May Ofsted published their mathematics research review. There's a lot to read but it's definitely worth taking the time to do so, particularly if you lead a maths department.

Subscriptions to resourceaholic.com

Google is shutting down Feedburner, the service through which over 2000 people currently subscribe to my blog via email. So I have had to switch to Follow.it for email subscriptions. If you were already a subscriber, I will transfer your subscription over. Hopefully you won't notice any difference other than a slight change in email format. If you aren't a subscriber yet, click here to subscribe. This is a great way to keep up with my blog posts. You'll only get emailed when I publish a new post, so that's once or twice a month.

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I'll leave you with this graphic showing the evolution of the word “hundred” in Indo-European languages, which is from this beautiful blog by @JakubMarian.