I’ve always thought my primary school teacher had it right – describing me as a ‘jack of all trades’ at the age of 11. Music, Baking, Sewing, Art, Computers, all take up large amounts of my spare time, but mostly… I love maths. There. I said it. There’s just something brilliant about learning how to do something you didn’t know before – even more so when you can create that kind of feeling through teaching maths to someone else. Unfortunately, not all students share my enthusiasm for maths (loudly though I rave about it!) and as a teacher I have battled against what I like to call the ’30 minute itch’ – the point in a lesson at which students students say ‘enough’ – let me do something. I will always remember Andrew, who simply had to stand up at this point – still working, but stood on his feet instead of sat in a chair!
I have been teaching for 5 years in a secondary school in Northumberland – Cramlington Learning Village, where I have had many amazing opportunities to learn from and work with fabulous teachers, as well as the freedom to experiment with new ideas. When trying to develop activities for engaging dis-interested boys in a middle ground year 8 set, I decided to try to record the ideas (some old, some new!) that worked for my students. Some are created, many I have seen in action in other classrooms, schools and through the world wide web!
