Hook into Maths!
In our newsletter this month, we mentioned that we would be welcoming Sam Parkes from the University of Chichester to lead a series of staff meetings exploring different approaches to teaching maths.
Last week we held the first of these sessions which focused on using the simplest of questions to HOOK children into their learning. By asking questions that cultivate curiosity, more questions are generated and the children are required to think more deeply, applying their mathematical knowledge to reason and problem solve. By discovering they need additional information to help them solve problems, rather than just applying a mathematical formula, they think more deeply and have a real context to apply new strategies or concepts.
Over the coming weeks, we will be experimenting with the ideas that Sam has shared with us in classrooms throughout school and, just as we did in the autumn term, we will be carrying out a lesson study to help us to reflect on the impact this approach is having. Sam will be coming back to school in March to see learning in action!
If you are interested to know more, we highly recommend watching these TED Talks which have inspired us to think differently. The first of these is by Jo Boaler, a Professor of Mathematics at Stanford School of Education and the second by Dan Meyer, a secondary maths teacher who holds similar views to Jo about the starting points to learning in maths!
Look out for more information in our next newsletter with examples of what this looks like in our classrooms and opportunities for you to find out more!