I could cut down my marking time if I stopped throwing a wobbler throughout. They’re assessments and I’m reacting to each question like they’re cup final penalties.

I have to say, I find this letter completely baffling for a number of reasons:

I'm sorry

Happy Halloween! *elbows in some self-promotion* Got a story out in a book. It’s good.

Texting a special someone* and getting those nervous tummy flips hoping that this will be the one 🥰 *trying to arrange home repairs before term starts back up

You'll pry these Oxford commas out of my cold, dead, third thing hands

Made it to half term! 🫠

Hawking my wares again this morning!

Bog People is OUT! Hardback, ebook and audio versions are available from all over! It’s got ten great stories in it that take folk horror as their inspiration and weaves new paths through the woods! It’s got gross bits, funny bits, sad bits! It’s got a copper foil embossed spine!

#mathstoday I've had in the past students finding it difficult to decide if an expression would factorise into a single or double bracket. So I created a mix of 20 questions to try and build that skill of deciding which one to use. Unsurprisingly a lot of them struggled. Better now than an exam!

In #MathsToday I made 40 A Level teachers colour in representations of the binomial distribution. This is your regular reminder that if you teach #ALevelMaths you should definitely try to join your local Maths Hub’s A Level Pedagogy group. There is some brilliant stuff going on all over England.

In #Alevelmaths syllabus (we do AQA) are they expected to be able to deal with fractional roots / factors of form (ax+b) using the factor theorem?

Had an epiphany yesterday: teach angles questions as a series of reasons with numbers as an after thought instead of other way round.

Made this Circle Theorems and Trigonometry worksheet inspired by interwoven maths @nathanday.bsky.social in #Mathstoday PPT and answers here: chelekmaths.com/most-recent-...

✨New A-level resources from this week's Year 12 lessons on graphical inequalities, algebraic fractions and algebraic division. The new A-level section is slowly growing! www.draustinmaths.com/a-level #MathsToday #ALevelMaths #UKMathsChat

Last Friday I posted about how we have encorporated difference of two squares before factorising. We follow the @lasalleed.bsky.social scheme of work. substack.com/@fantasticma...

I am struggling with my year 11 classes so much this year. Trying to get a bit of headspace to find out how to meet them where they are, but I’ve never known it be this draining!

Nothing pleases me more like a kudzu-covered telephone pole on a foggy day

October Country Ray Bradbury for @tomsbrown.bsky.social and any others who love this month.

Work in progress - identify the angle in the alternate segment Inspired by my colleague Rushni whose Year 11s were struggling to do such a thing. comments/questions/thoughts welcome #MathsToday

#Mathstoday Year 10 found expressions for shaded areas. Made this last year for an extension but it was nice spending a bit longer on it.

[at my second rodeo] listen up you ignorant sack of shit

In #MathsToday I did this as a starter on estimation. With the aim of getting pupils to consider which counters are the 'significant' ones.

If I got answers to questions based on solely my own aspirations and thoughts and notes I would be in a right mess. Most of what I’ve thought and aspired to has been Very Dumb. Not to be a ‘21st century skill’ shill, but you need to be able to curate your own thoughts/actions, not plug a 1/2

#MathsToday Introduced the idea of a domain with a few examples and then used this. It worked well! I felt it helped them get a ‘feel’ for things rather than getting stuck in computation. I want to build in some generalisation next lesson to have any square with a vertex on the origin. 1/2

In #MathsToday we used this ncetm checkpoint and followed it up with this Don Steward beauty donsteward.blogspot.com/2013/12/near... for Functional Skills level 1 #FEMaths

#MathsToday Teaching histograms to year 11 this week and returned to @drrowlandson.bsky.social’s amazing planning series to start. So much deep thought and insight in every post! 🙌 ponderingplanning.wordpress.com/2020/06/05/f...

Made this for my year 11. Not the most exciting and not a lot of variety in types but they wanted practice factorsing with quadratics mathshko.com/2019/10/04/alg…

#MathsToday Equations with 9s & we looked at how ‘easier’ strategies aren’t always so! The first way of solving on the right hand example threw them for a loop. “We’re doing equations not fractions though.” (!) Such an interesting thing to say, and I wonder how much they thing everything’s distinct.

shoutout to tumblr user kleinergeist for this post which is going straight into my powerpoint for Grendel day in my monster class this week

My daughter is doing her Sparx and she just spotted the Chrome now offers in-built AI homework cheating (see button at the top right - takes you straight to AI tools that answer the question for you). FFS.

"Healthy debate" = when I criticize you "Cancel culture" = when you criticize me

New! My 192nd gems post. Ideas, updates and resources for maths teachers. 💎 www.resourceaholic.com/2025/09/5-ma... Hat tips to follow. #mathstoday #ukmathschat #alevelmaths #iteachmath

In #MathsToday, Year 12 looked at some graph intersections and solving some simultaneous equations, and then sketching the graphs!

We’re yr9 entry with pupils from all over and today in one of my classes while others practised single brackets I tried to convince a small group of them to think a bit more laterally rather than expanding and combining terms to push their thinking. Ended up here with them! #MathsToday

Adjusted for inflation Spirited Away cost $22 million to make. The Triplets of Belleville cost $16.5 million, Cartoon Saloon's Wolfwalkers cost $14.28 million, and Oscar winner Flow cost only $4 million. These critically acclaimed, made by real people films, cost less than this pile of actual vomit.

Saturday matinee is filling up nicely! Could do with more sales on the other performances, though... Anybody in #Nottingham who fancies a terrific old-school thriller, come see Patrick Hamilton's GASLIGHT at the Lace Market Theatre! 22-27 September. lacemarkettheatre.co.uk/LaceMarketTh...

Teachers not spending their time teaching -- the genius success formula we've been waiting for all these years The 21st century: what a stupid time to be alive

Taught my first #MathsToday lessons of the year! I forgot how much fun this topic is with Year 7. Today we played “guess the method from the calculation”.

#MathsToday Used the brilliant ‘Ab-surd!’ from the brilliant Underground Maths today for my first lesson with my new yr12s undergroundmathematics.org/thinking-abo...

It's that time of year again - your annual reminder that if you're a Maths teacher and looking for suitable resources for your classes across KS3 to KS5 then do check out www.draustinmaths.com. The site is five years old this week 🎉🎉 and in that time it's amassed over 1000 resources! 1/3

Thinking about last year, my new year’s resolution is proper back to basics stuff. Make sure I log positives on the system. Advice I haven’t had since I was a NQT, but I dropped right off with it last year.

Just a reminder that if you are about to start teaching #ALevelMaths, this book is available from the Mathematical Association @mathematicala.bsky.social online shop. In my completely unbiased opinion, it's really quite useful.

Just gone to book on to the next level of evening language classes at my local university for next term and they've all been axed. Every language, at every level! That's never going to built up from scratch again.

I’ve got recommendations for some topical self-promotion on this. 1: Anyone fancying a short story collection that runs the gamut of style and genre will love this. (It’s new, I’m in it, it’s good!) 1/2 northerngravy.com/product/fict...

1. The Flags have arrived in my area. They make me uneasy. It isn't I have a problem with them when we're celebrating something. Football. Olympics. Even a royal wedding. But right now they don't *feel* like a positive affirmation of stuff we like but more a protest against things people don't..

As the dust settles after results day and the focus of leadership teams returns to the coming academic year, I think it's natural that much of this focus sits with year 11. But if there's one thing I think we get wrong with Y11, it's giving unsupported exam practise.

This is wild to me. Lunch duty on a full teaching day? When are you peeing? Or talking to another grown up? I’d lose my mind before October half term.

Proposal. Instead of all new smart TVs coming with motion smoothing switched on, they come with a holding channel that just shows Linda Barker’s Changing Rooms floating shelf teapot collection disaster from 2000, on a loop.

Great discussion in #Mathstoday about how our students would solve this and how we could teach them to solve it efficiently