Multiplication comes before addition. Not quite that simple. #1001MathsBots mathsbot.com/tasks

Enjoyed speaking at this event. Amazing conference with an excellent range of Maths CPD for all phases!

Yesterday we travelled to @booleanmathshub's Annual Maths Conference at @TauntonRacing. There was coffee and wonderful food. There was MATHS! We explored the brilliance of blocks, experienced Core Maths, and listened to an inspirational key-note speaker, @jaytimotheus. Wow!

Before you blindly rearrange, factorise then solve, it might be better to slow down and ask yourself: "What do you notice?" mathsbot.com/cpd

A good example of when ‘Don’t just sit there, do something’ should actually be ‘Don’t just do something, sit there’.

🧵 (1/6) This is our professional community of maths leaders in multi-academy trusts, together in London on Friday. About 80 trusts, 1000 schools and 10000 teachers of maths are represented right here!

Delighted to announce that I’m co-leading (alongside @informed_edu) a major new and independent review of maths curriculum & assessment: @mathshorizons mathshorizons.uk

If I may bore you with a little philosophy, and hypothesise why Birbalsingh has gone in for this kind of nonsense too: The narrative at play here is one which radically reduces the amount of agency that the individuals have: If you are angry, it's *because* you've been neglected by the elites If you express that anger, it's *because* you've been taken for granted If you show violence against ethnic minorities, it's *because* metropolitan technocrats have allowed those minorities and immigrants to take your job Etc etc. When it comes to apportioning blame, you move it a step away, and say "well, what did you expect to happen?" The main issue I have with this is that it ignores the fact that most of us believe in free will, and that people make choices. You don't *have* to lob a brick at a police officer or a mosque, you *choose* to. You don't *have* to get on a bus and travel hundreds of miles to go burn some bins, you *choose* to. Swinging back to education: one of the biggest debates between "trads" and "progs" was about student agency. On one side, people argued that if you planned your lesson well and it was engaging and relevant, students would behave. If you had good relationships and unconditional positive regard, your students would behave. If they didn't behave, it's because you didn't do that work, so teachers were quite literally blamed for students' poor behaviour. On the other side, people argued that this was A) empirically not true and B) philosophically problematic, because it downplays student agency. It treats students as if they have no choice in the matter: if my lesson is good they behave, if not, not. Others believe that I can plan the most boring lesson in the world and still expect children to behave, because it's a choice, and they should choose to behave because it's the right thing to do. It's always been a bit of a tightrope though, because the grain of truth is that there are plenty of things we can do to increase or decrease the chances of students making the right choice. E.g. putting in a system of clear and consistent consequences results in students making better choices. But we don't want to go so far that we take away their choice completely, we have to believe that students are like any other human, and we have to start from a position where we give them the dignity of choice. Any time we put in a rule or a restriction, we have to do it with care, and with the knowledge that it has to be worth it. Against that backdrop, Birbalsingh has a rather extreme position. Her belief appears to be that if we put *any* slack into the system, chaos will descend. If we don't have completely silent corridors, or we allow students to congregate in groups of 5, or we put in a prayer room, everything will fall apart. This is a pretty hardline position on student agency - it says "if I don't do all of these crazy restrictive things, students will inevitably become feral." Is this so different from saying "if the government doesn't close the borders and listen to the legitimate concerns of the left behind white working class then they will inevitably become feral"? To me, only the surface is different. The deep structure represents a common view of humanity and agency. So there's a type of consistency here, rooted in a belief that people have no agency, and are mere leaves on whatever wind happens to be blowing. It's not a vision of humanity that I share. Anyway, that's my theory. Maybe I'm overthinking 🤷‍♂️

Delighted to publish our @AxiomMaths report into the state of maths education today, with some extensive polling into the public’s attitudes to maths. We found…

Looked at this very task at @NCETM Maths MAT leads yesterday! @ProfSmudge

Great thread on creativity, mathematics and education from @DrHelenDrury. Worth reading to the end!!!

Published today: Secondary Maths Practice Review 👇🏽 educationendowmentfoundation…

Yes you heard right, @CoopAcademies ITT Programme has just reached 40 Trainee Teachers for its 2024/25 Cohort! We are proud to work as a Lead Partner for @BF_SCITT to deliver high quality, innovative, research-led teacher training! 🩵🧡 Dare I see 45 in the distance 🤩👀

What is the P… in CPA? by Anne Watson & John Mason is the next classic article showcasing during #MTmonth24. The full article can be read at bit.ly/3ohlQo4 @annemathswatson @JohnMOxford

Thanks to @ATMMathematics for selecting this as one of the readings for #MTMonth24!

Published online yesterday - further analyses from @UoNSoE Improving the Mathematics Pipeline project data @xtxmarkets #openacces @CBrignell @geoffwake1 @CathGripton @IOE_London @IMAmaths @royalsociety @thejmcuk @MarkBoylanEd @thejmcuk bit.ly/4apMEUO

My tenth(!) article for @ATMMathematics Mathematics Teaching. My first was 22 years ago! "Feel the Maths" focuses on the affective aspects of cognition. What do you feel when you make sense of a mathematical idea? Can you know you are experiencing cognition without feeling it?

I have posted 5 animated videos for maths teaching here: instagram.com/alf.coles/reel…, these cover Trig, Pythag, mystic roses and one on projective geometry (a personal interest). These used to be on a mathsfilms website, now defunct. @WebbMaths @TFrancome @ATMMathematics @geometry4yl

Could this be you? Exciting opportunity to become the KS3 Maths lead in our brand new school in Stoke-on-Trent. florencemacwilliams.coopacad…

Enjoyed our first trust-wide maths competition today! Lots of mathematical thinking, conversations and excitement!