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Practical Resources in Primary Maths Classrooms

This weekend, I was tagged in a tweet from @KCost, asking what practical maths equipment people would recommend for primary schools, given a budget of just £100 per class. Straight away the budget restriction means that some hard choices would have to be made, and this was the gist of my immediate tweeted response. But […]

Shape Up 5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Shape Up Conference 2024, part 5: Friday Into the final furlong…last night, as is common on the final evening of conference, the subject associations hold their AGMs before the quiz. This is one of those times where the problems of having so many separate associations are brought […]

Shape Up 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5 Shape Up Conference 2024, part 4: Thursday (pm) Late again…I’ve managed to be late for every single session so far today. Well done me. After lunch I spent a very pleasant half an hour chatting with Chris Ingram, founder of the fabulous Autopress Education. Chris and I […]

Shape Up 3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Part 5 Shape Up Conference 2024, part 3: Thursday (am) Thursday (am): After dinner last night I headed to the bar. But having spent £16 on two drinks I realised that it wouldn’t be a late night for affordability reasons, so I set about looking for a TV to […]

Shape Up 2

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Shape Up Conference 2024, part 2: Wednesday (pm) Wednesday afternoon: I chose to go to a session from conference veteran Bob Vertes, who introduced us to a series of fascinating games and puzzles. The first involved a circle of paper, on which we drew a sequence of […]

Shape Up 1

Shape Up Conference 2024, part 1: Wednesday (am) Stratford Upon Avon – such an inspiring place for a conference.The day started with a tour of the Guildhall and Shakespeare’s schoolroom, organised by Rob Eastaway as a pre-conference ‘bonus’. I was expecting it to be interesting, but nothing prepared our small group of 15 or so […]

Should Maths be Compulsory in the United Kingdom until the age of 18?

Yes. That’s the short answer. But as my regular contacts and readers will be aware, I am not exactly famous for brevity, so here’s the real (slightly longer) answer. It depends. Also true, but not a lot better. ‘Depends on what?‘ is of course the real question. In this post I have set out four […]