Secondary Maths

Football’s a game of two halves

Ireland organise the greatest maths show on Earth! Maths Week Ireland. A week of mathematics lectures, shows, workshops, street maths and events happens every year around this time to link in with William Rowan Hamilton, the Irish mathematician’s discovery of Quaternions on the 16th October 1843. Quaternions are a strange kind of 4D algebra that did not have many uses until recently when Vodaphone used the algebra to improve data transmission. Read More

Slum dog standard form

Listening to ‘The Educators’ on Radio 4 this week, I heard Professor Sugata Mitra, from Newcastle University enthuse about his research into how children can teach themselves through what he terms ‘self organised learning environments’ (SOLE). The programme made me think a good story can set learning in context and give students a reason to remember. And so the “story” goes… Read More

Curriculum Change – Will these new grades “go up to 11”?

Ed Walsh takes a look at the GCSE grade reforms and the implications for measuring progress. Read More

Notes from the history of Maths: Phantasmic Fillers

Inspire your Secondary Maths students with a lesson on world-famous graphic artist and mathematician Maurits Escher Read More

Secondary Maths – Visualising the Mean

Chris Pearce is impressed by an ingenious way of representing mean, median and mode visually Read More

Notes from the history of Maths: Size matters…

Don Hoyle traces the fascinating history of Mercenne primes - from French monks to a supercomputer in Florida! Read More

The end is nigh: notes on the History of Maths

Engage your Secondary Maths students with a lesson based on the Mayan calendar Read More

Scattering the Plenary

Christopher Curtis argues the case for student-led plenaries in the maths classroom Read More

Secondary Maths – Did you know? Notes from the history of Maths

Keeping it in the family It seems to be often the case that mathematical aptitude is not evenly spread in families. Parents often say they can’t help their gifted child at home, as they were rubbish at Maths themselves. There are exceptions and here are some notable ones from the… Read More

Simply take…some chunky chalk

Locate the points The sun is shining (or it is as I write this) and when using this activity I can give a positive response to the regular question from students – ‘Can we go outside for this lesson?’ This is an activity that could be used to develop the… Read More