La Salle is now closing its doors and I feel overwhelmingly sad about the end of an incredible era. These events, quite frankly, changed my life. I met some of my best friends at mathsconfs - Ed Southall, Tom Bennison, Dave Faram, Megan Guinan and Craig Barton. I presented to an audience of maths teachers for the first time at mathsconfs - I remember how incredibly nervous I used to be! I formed networks at mathsconfs which have led to countless opportunities and connections. I became a better teacher at mathsconfs. At mathsconfs I had the opportunity to personally thank all the people whose resources I use everyday - people like Amanda Austin, Jonny Hall, Nathan Day, John Corbett, and Nicola and James from MathsPad. And I met the legends who made these events shine like Rob Smith, Peter Mattock, Julia Smith and Bruno Reddy.
In this post I want to reflect not just on yesterday's mathsconf but also on some of my favourite memories of mathsconfs past.
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It took four trains to get to Barnsley so I didn't arrive until 8.45pm on Friday, travelling after school with Megan, David and Nathalie. My favourite moment of the journey was when Megan asked the train station staff at Wakefield Westgate how to get to Wakefield Westgate!
There were drinks in the hotel bar on Friday night as always.
On Saturday we headed to Trinity Academy St. Edwards, a lovely school with fantastic maths results. Our host, Will Wilson, delivered a really inspirational opening talk. It was a great venue for a conference, and everyone was intrigued by the music which played in corridors at regular intervals - an unusual lesson changeover bell! I wore a maths dress as a tribute to past mathsconfs (I own at least eight maths dresses and used to wear a different one every time!).
The first workshop I attended was on area mazes with Jon Southern. I wanted to do some maths at this conference and I know area mazes are really fun, having discovered then originally through Don Steward. Jon's session was great - I did indeed get to do loads of puzzles, and I also learnt some techniques so got a lot better at solving area mazes! Here's an example - you're not allowed to use fractions at any point (and it's not drawn to scale!).
I was stuck on one puzzle so sat with Ed Southall and Tom Bennison afterwards to work it out. This is one of the best things about mathsconfs - having the opportunity to do fun maths together.
At break Ed taught Amanda Austin how to play her new game - Quarto - which she won on the AQA stand.
After break I went to Gareth Shadick's workshop "What needs to happen for a student to reach Grade 4 in GCSE Maths?". It was good to discuss the content of Foundation GCSE in more detail. I really encourage all secondary teachers, particularly those who teach Key Stage 3, to watch my video which explains what students learn in Key Stage 2.
At lunch Megan got a screwdriver out to help peel a challenging orange. She carries a screwdriver for compass adjustments!
After lunch I presented on 'Simultaneous Equations in Depth' and I'm sharing my slides here with the usual caveat that they might not make much sense without my commentary.
After my session I spoke to @zofiatheteacher who showed me this great task - we later discovered that it features in a RISP.
On the train home with Nathalie, Atul, Pete, Dave and Megan we all had a go, and loved the algebraic proof. This was excellent entertainment for the train journey!
We also had conversations about the layout of simultaneous equations. Ed said that because the stacking of two equations is a new idea for students, it's worth practising this with arithmetic first:
It used to be standard practice for students to add algebraic terms vertically, like in this example from 1885:
but we don't present 'simplifying' questions in this format any more - it's all horizontal. So when they're taught simultaneous equations it's the first time they do this.
After my session I attended the last session of the day - Ed Southall's workshop on problem solving, We had some interesting discussions about problems in context, and whether the context helps or hinders.
It was a great 'last' mathsconf. I enjoyed myself immensely.
Mathsconf Memories
I wasn't at the first mathsconf - I was very new to Twitter at the time and had just had a baby, and I didn't know it was happening until after the event. But I attended the second conference and have now been to more conferences than most. I've blogged about most of them along the way, and sometimes did post-conference podcasts, and have so many brilliant memories that I can't possible feature all of them here. But some highlights from me:
Mathsconf9 in March 2017 in Bristol was a great one. Ed's book Yes, But Why? had just come out and we had celebratory drinks.
Pre-conference drinks were a big thing back then! Look at how many people we had at drinks in 2018.
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My biggest (messiest) night out was in Ashford in 2023 where I ended up in a random nightclub until the early hours. And the less said about that the better!
The cake competition was always brilliant. In 2016 I wrote my 50th gems post and Julia Smith arranged to have a cake made to commemorate the occasion! I loved this.
The lunchtime tweet up was always fun, and I loved the team I worked with on these in the early days of mathsconf (Dawn made us matching t shirts once!).
So many memories! I have hundreds of photos. Here are a few more favourites from over the years - the first one shows how big the conferences used to be!
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Thank you La Salle and AQA for bringing us these wonderful events. I know it took an immense amount of hard work and I am incredibly grateful.
Like I said in my last blog post, this is not the end of affordable Saturday conferences for maths teachers. These will continue in 2027 and beyond, I will make sure of it. And Rob Smith has promised me that wherever we end up, his tuck shop will follow.
Please share your favourite mathsconf memories in the comments below.
Mathsconf is dead. Long live mathsconf!
Having young children since I trained in 2018, I only managed to make it once the online ones started in COVID. Derby earlier this year was my first in person, kids are just getting to the age where I can attend so I REALLY hope this isn't the end!
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