This term I've been trialling using sentence stems-classes saying key ideas out loud. In #MatysToday I tried it with year 11 higher tier revision. We all felt a bit silly at first but it genuinely helped them to consolidate their understanding and improved the quality of their explanations.

Lovely set of quadratic sequences from @taylorda01.bsky.social used in #MathsToday. We particularly liked exploring the different ways to approach sequences (f) and (g). My year 10s also wanted to explore cubic sequences and quartics! I love their enthusiasm. taylorda01.weebly.com/uploads/4/2/...

I was so proud of one of my year 13's in #Mathstoday. He said he just didn't get what independent events meant. He said he knew he should have learnt it ages ago but had been too embarrassed to ask before today. I praised him for identifying a gap in his knowledge and doing something about it.

In #mathstoday we had just learnt how to find the area of a segment so finished with these problems. I really liked how on one table of 4 pupils they had 3 different methods for the bottom left problem. How would you break it up?

Found my year 7 class discussing Numberblocks in #MathsToday to help them with square numbers. Such a brilliant TV show that clearly has an impact on children's understanding of number. #iteachmaths

Really proud of my year 8's in #MathsToday. They loved these questions working out the weight of each apple. But I was particularly impressed with them explaining their reasoning, something I've been trying so hard to develop in them this year.

Great question in #FurtherMaths while studying matrices for stretches today. If the determinant of the matrix is the area scale factor, what happens when the determinant is zero? I told the class to trial it and find out. Lovely bit of investigative work testing out their ideas. #MathsToday

In #MathsToday I used stem sentences to support teaching of expanding brackets. I was pleasantly surprised to hear pupils respond to questions using the structure of the stem sentence without me prompting them to do so. Would love to hear others' experiences of stem sentences in secondary maths.

While learning proof with year 10 in #MathsToday, I found out which of my pupils I can discuss Eurovision with later in the year thanks to these statements we disproved with counterexamples. #eurovision

Lovely impromptu moment in #MathsToday (yesterday), Head of upper school who is also a science teacher walked into my rearranging formulas lesson and said "oh I can do that! Here, try this one I've been using today" Great for pupils to see how different subjects link together. #iteachmaths

In #MathsToday pupils vote which of these were equivalent to the original expression. 1 vote Mario, 15 votes Luigi, 1 vote Bowser and 20 votes Peaches. One pupil explained she voted for Peaches because she just knew you multiply. So we then looked at it expanded and why multiplying works.

Lovely #oracy work on indices in #MathsToday. We haven't covered negative indices yet but this got them pondering negative indices and considering non integer values for a and b as well as 0 and 1. Looking forward to delving deeper next lesson.

While simplifying fractions in #MathsToday, a pupil asked me why the divisibility by 3 trick works. I felt daft I'd never queried it before! We had a lovely time using algebra to prove it works for 2 digit numbers then 3 digits numbers. Love it when a lesson goes off piste like that.

In #MathsToday I used this activity to gauge and challenge my pupils' understanding of parallel lines. Two were convinced b are parallel because they look like train tracks. Really made me think about the language we use when defining these things.

In #MathsToday I have been looking at where my department are in terms of developing oracy skills. I found that many activities lend themselves to discussion work naturally but that not all pupils engage in these discussions and not all pupils demonstrate authentic listening skills. #oracy #voice21

I had a tough lesson with low ability y8 on Tuesday unsuccessfully trying to find circumference of a circle but tried again in #MathsToday and thankfully the relentless work done on what is radius and what is diameter paid off. Made this sheet inspired by @draustinmaths.com fill in the blank sheets.

In #MathsToday my year 11s were writing error intervals. They asked if the inequalities were always the same (...<=...<...), I originally said yes but then one pupil mentioned negatives! Brilliant discussion about whether an error interval for x rounded to -4 to the nearest integer is -4.5<x<=-3.5

In #mathstoday I had my year 8s sit back to back, then one partner had to describe the circle diagram and the other had to draw it from the description. We then formally introduced each of the parts of a circle and used our correct vocabulary for the white rose task. #oracy #voice21

Thanks @missradders.bsky.social for reminding me about the Durham Maths mysteries. I used the straight line graphs one to get my year 10s warmed up and using their oracy skills yesterday.

Calling all Maths teachers! What are some of your all-time great tasks for secondary Maths? Ones that could have their place in any curriculum, one that should be studied in PGCE courses, ones that started whole new genres of tasks... ... or just ones you really like. (see some of mine below)

In #mathstoday I used this visual from a core maths lesson. Pupils were tasked with ranking the competitors however they wanted as long as they could explain it. Interesting chat about when a low range was a good thing and when it was not so good, no one wants to be consistently bad! #iteachmaths

Really thought provoking day so far at @yrmathshub.bsky.social with great talks by Axiom Maths, Liz Lambert and Sue Johnston-Wilder. #yrsummerconf

So after working on this on and off for 5 years I have finally finished typing up and creating a book of my dad's letters home and accompanying photos from his time as a VSO in east Asia for his family to read again. My dad died over 30 years ago so this means so much to my family. #VSO

Excited and a little nervous to be presenting my #WomenInMaths assembly this week. Such an important message as my student voice date showed we still have pupils who believe maths is a boys subject and boys are better at maths. #May12

In #MathsToday my year 8's were finding the volume of prisms. We used multilink cubes to help understand the concept as finding the number of cubes in a 'layer' then multiplying by the number of layers. I'm trying to get them away from thinking shape work is all about remembering formulas.

Please can those of you who use devices like Chromebooks in your lessons share your experience. My school are looking to get them in September. Would love to know 1? how your lessons have changed since using devices. 2. Any tips on best use. Any reposts are also much appreciated #iteachmaths

Had some lovely discussions with my year 8's in #MathsToday using some of the @ncetm.bsky.social mastery key ideas materials. Pupils particularly liked reference to the TV gameshow Hope in the Wall 😆

Enjoyed teaching sketching gradient functions to my y12's in #MathsToday. Got them all using their pens to act as tangents of a graph to see how the gradient changes as we move along the curve. Used this lovely task from underground maths too #AlevelMaths undergroundmathematics.org/introducing-...

In #MathsToday I ran a CPD session on using representations when teaching maths. The key take aways were 1. Choose the right representation to aid in the understanding of the concept/structure 2. Use familiar representations 3. Take time when introducing new representations.

In #MathsToday my year 8's were showing off their coordinate geometry skills. I love activities like this where pupils can see all the different things they can do with limited information. Might have to extend this for my GCSE class and include distances and perpendicular lines.

In #MathsToday I had 3 year 12's describe differentiating from first principles as 'fun'! I only picked this class up 3 weeks ago, their genuine enjoyment of learning maths is so refreshing, really looking forward to their lessons. #AlevelMaths

In #MathsToday my year 7's had their 2nd lesson on expanding brackets. We compared different methods, with all by the end of the lesson choosing grid method or claw, having all used algebra tiles last lesson. We ended with: expand 3(x-5)-2(x-5) to check whether they would rely too much on a method.

In #MathsToday my pupils needed help with deciding how to solve fraction problems, should they divide, multiply, which part??? So I took them back to drawing it out as a bar model.

In #MathsToday my year 8's had their 2nd lesson on gradients, which concluded with them discussing the following examples and non examples. I heard some lovely discussions about the graphs with different scales and was so pleased to hear how easily they spotted when the gradient was negative or 1/3

In #MathsToday my new class of year 12's got stuck into the Tilted Squares activity by @meimaths.bsky.social It was a great activity to help me get to know the class and to hear them discussing their strategies. mei.org.uk/app/uploads/...

In #MathsToday (actually yesterday!) I needed to improve my year 7's explanations skills so after going through some good and bad examples we tried these questions. My challenge now is to maintain high expectations of quality explanations.

In #MathsToday had some lovely discussion work using this T or F mathspad resource about using products of primes which also lead into discussing how to determine if a number is square using it's product of primes. Finished with working out as many number facts about 2025 as we could #iteachmaths

When teaching rounding to the nearest integer this week, pupils were reluctant to consider number lines because they "knew the rule to round up when its a 5". It was great to challenge this with questions such as: Does -1.6 round up or down? How do we round fractions?" #EduSky #iTeachMath #mathchat