I sat down to type this tonight and I realised that this is in real danger of quickly becoming a fitness blog. I really don’t want that. I began the year just writing and stumbled upon the idea of answering questions as I went. I felt that might have been a decent way to generate things to think about. The only problem is, I don’t have a bank of questions that I’m working with. I will sit down and write some, but at the moment, I am running low.
The reason that this is becoming too themed is that I was going to share on here my walk this evening – I walked home from work having been dropped off nearby this morning.
I have decided against that and I’m typing this nonsense now.
I have been thinking about maths recently too. Some classes are trialling a newish approach at work and a few of my colleagues have begun to pick my brain about things. I no longer lead maths at our school, but I still get used to bounce ideas off – which, I might add, I’m more than happy for people to do. My previous experience in the Primary Maths Specialist Teacher programme (MaST) has lead to having a bank of activity ideas which have never been fully exploited. It strikes me that whole programme was a bit too ahead of its time and things didn’t really gather momentum behind it. When I completed the course, I was just one of 40 professionals in Kirklees to hold it. The new maths curriculum is tailor-made for a less is more, slow everything down and spend quality teaching time working on things approach. I fully agree with it and wholeheartedly support the initiative.
I think that idea of spending greater lengths of time teaching one particular aspect of maths in as many different contexts and ideas as possible is going to really benefit those children who have always just about understood something before the teacher moves on. Time will tell.
