MathsWithMsB 🦡

Teaching maths, asking questions, thinking about things, and retweeting, liking and bookmarking a virtual commonplace book.

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

Maths resource bank:

https://t.co/wxJ5332T47

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

1) Curated collections
@mathsjem's Maths Gems: https://t.co/YgoP3EAfQr
@ColleenYoung's Mathematical Miscellanies:
https://t.co/eJuMrsSq1Y

[Adam Boxer @adamboxer1]

I'd love to take @LucyMPowell on a schools tour. One week. Sevenish secondaries. Good ones, bad ones, I'd pick. Coastal, rural, urban. A good mix. We turn up in the morning with DBS's, we tell the schools there are no cameras, no inspections, nothing, we're just here to get a vibe.

Go see some lessons. Hit the corridors. Spend time with teachers on duty. Chat to heads of department. Maybe have lunch with some students. Ask the admin team for a flavour of their day and the stuff they are having to deal with.

Evenings is drinks. But not swanky things with MAT CEOs and folk with the letters after their names. They're important, but they already have a seat at the table. Instead, we invite front-line teachers and middle leaders. We want to know what life is like on the ground. What are their bosses telling them to do? Do they agree? Do they think there are other things they should be prioritising? What do they think would really help the children they teach?

I think Powell would maybe change her mind about some things. About where schools do well, and where they don't. About just how stuck some of our schools are, and how routes to improvement are ordinarily based not in widespread reform, but in the concrete day to day of efficient and effective schools. Rather than grand narratives, simple things like improving behaviour and classroom standards. Getting students out of the corridors and into classrooms, and getting every teacher a working laptop and a board that doesn't keep glitching. Clear escalatory processes, and the manpower and capacity to enforce them. Bandwidth for teachers to deal with the increasing pressures from a broken SEND system and an increasingly demanding parent body. Physical, concrete things. Not educational reform, but direct school actions and strategies.

I'd love to do that. I think she'd enjoy it, and I reckon it would be time well spent.

[Adam Boxer @adamboxer1]

One of the absolute joys of teaching science at TTA is that i saw some groups for the first time today, whacked up a quiz based on content from last year, and the students did really well. They know the stuff.

Having a long term memory strategy and tight curriculum works 💪

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

@olicav I am so sorry to hear that, Oliver. Much love to you and your family.

[Adam Boxer @adamboxer1]

First up, webinars. Every year, thousands of teachers join our webinars on behaviour, questioning, leadership and more. Each one takes days to put together and is delivered in our signature interactive style.

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https://t.co/73HUjUvu3k

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[Corbettmaths @Corbettmaths]

Just finished the Ruby, Emerald and Diamond 5-a-day for KS1 🎉
https://t.co/TS2DMmH78q

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

Excellent post from @Miss_Snuffy:

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

Have a look at this thread from Stuart.👇

He is a school leader of more than one school. He is reasonable. He doesn’t agree with everything I think but in general his schools do similar stuff to Michaela.

That’s because there is a science to schools, kids, leadership. That’s why his schools are successful.

Like him, we too have taken lots of ideas from other schools and made them work for us. We are open to ideas that work.

Instead of rejecting what Michaela does outright and desperately trying to find reasons why ‘you can’t get our results’- when no one has suggested you should - Why not be like Stuart and calmly assess what might work for your situation?

Be open to change. Be curious.

When I first met Stuart, he said to me that in 2010 when he heard my Conservative Party speech, he disagreed. But over time, he moved.

Be open to learning from everyone. When you obsess about one school, wanting to show why ‘it is unfair’ and ‘how we must be rigging things’, it is just a little mad. We are a normal state school, like any other.

But a lot of what we do is very different. Might you not wonder about the impact of those different ideas and mindset? Might it be that those differences help to explain why we do so well?

Stuart makes a good point - I have been Head of Michaela since its inception. That’s 16 years. That’s a long time for consistent leadership from the top.

But Stuart doesn’t then get angry about his clever point. He notes it and moves on.

Be like Stuart. He is able to say ‘well done’ to us for our results without resentment and anger. He is a nice guy.

Try to be nice. 😊

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

Have a look at this thread from Stuart.👇

He is a school leader of more than one school. He is reasonable. He doesn’t agree with everything I think but in general his schools do similar stuff to Michaela.

That’s because there is a science to schools, kids, leadership. That’s why his schools are successful.

Like him, we too have taken lots of ideas from other schools and made them work for us. We are open to ideas that work.

Instead of rejecting what Michaela does outright and desperately trying to find reasons why ‘you can’t get our results’- when no one has suggested you should - Why not be like Stuart and calmly assess what might work for your situation?

Be open to change. Be curious.

When I first met Stuart, he said to me that in 2010 when he heard my Conservative Party speech, he disagreed. But over time, he moved.

Be open to learning from everyone. When you obsess about one school, wanting to show why ‘it is unfair’ and ‘how we must be rigging things’, it is just a little mad. We are a normal state school, like any other.

But a lot of what we do is very different. Might you not wonder about the impact of those different ideas and mindset? Might it be that those differences help to explain why we do so well?

Stuart makes a good point - I have been Head of Michaela since its inception. That’s 16 years. That’s a long time for consistent leadership from the top.

But Stuart doesn’t then get angry about his clever point. He notes it and moves on.

Be like Stuart. He is able to say ‘well done’ to us for our results without resentment and anger. He is a nice guy.

Try to be nice. 😊

[Ross Wertjes @RossWertjes]

@adamboxer1 Who’s this?

[John B. Holbein @JohnHolbein1]

lol

[Tom Sherrington @teacherhead]

GCSE Grade 3 vs Grade 4: What Really Separates Them in Maths and English https://t.co/TbhgJISEGE

[Daisy Christodoulou @daisychristo]

The improvement in maths attainment at GCSE and the numbers taking maths at A-level are really striking. Incredible improvements over a fairly short period of time.

[Christine Counsell @Counsell_C]

Wonderful vindication of knowledge-rich done really, really well. Subject-sensitive disciplinary teaching that is deeply thorough from Y7, scholarly (not driven by GCSE questions) & packed with joy. History teaching in @ArkSoaneAcademy is off the scale. Bravo to staff and pupils.

[Clive Hill @Clive_Hill]

I feel that CEIAG and pathways to careers need to be better explained to kids, and parents.

[Adam Boxer @adamboxer1]

National Reference Test evidence changes allocations of maths grade 7s:

[BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast]

Meet 16 year old Patrick who is waiting for his GCSE results, like thousands of other teenagers.

But as Jayne McCubbin explained on #BBCBreakfast he took 5 months to complete his 7 GCSEs, just using his eyes

https://t.co/WwXqaJw8rI

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

@ThtPedagogyGeek Steady! Maybe 6😂

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

@ThtPedagogyGeek Looks great!

[Mr W 🇹🇭 @ThtPedagogyGeek]

@MathsWithMsB @andrewyoung82 @Miss_Snuffy If you figure this out il go halves on writing a book with you 😅
Itl be a best seller!

Joking aside and speaking generally I think the answer is the obvious one:
Good consistent T&L, prior knowledge, sufficient practice, teacher subject knowledge, wider outside sch conditions

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

@ThtPedagogyGeek @andrewyoung82 @Miss_Snuffy ...and also what helps students to make more progress than expected at A level in general.

[MathsWithMsB 🦡 @MathsWithMsB]

@ThtPedagogyGeek @andrewyoung82 @Miss_Snuffy Yes - the students are making the expected progress, and getting great grades.

I'm still intrigued by what helps students to make more than expected progress from a high starting point: what helps to get the A* grades? What works to secure an average of A or A+, rather than A-?