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About the Site

I have designed this site as a place to collect and share good practice, resources and ideas. The current key focus of the site is numeracy across the curriculum, literacy within maths and the development of differentiated maths resources. Ideas and resources shared are either from myself, colleagues or tweeters. In scenario's of were the source of the resource is known and isn't from myself I will accredit the relevant people. So please if you have any resources to share get in touch. 

About Miss B 

I'm Danielle Bartram, the face behind Miss B. My current job title is Maths Lead Practitioner and Numeracy Coordinator, at Acklam Grange School. I gained a Maths degree, from Lancaster University, in 2011 and earned my PGCE, from Durham University, in 2012. I went on to gain full QTS in 2013, since then I have had a key focus on making maths fun and exciting for all pupils. I have developed strategies to do this in a meaningful way, targeting revision materials and independent learning. My new focus is now to develop numeracy skills across the curriculum and to develop good/ outstanding practice to promote rapid progress of all students. During my NQT year I also designed and developed the interactive seating plan, which is now used by thousands of teachers across the United Kingdom. Outside of the classroom I enjoy playing both the trombone and piano. I currently play for a local brass band and a concert band.

Maths Murder Investigation

A fun and exciting maths task where students have to find who is the murderer by completing a series of algebra and numerical problems to eliminate the 10 suspects. Throughout the activity students have to justify why they are eliminating suspects bringing a strong element of literacy into the task.

More information and download

Numeracy Maps

Great for revision and extension purposes. Ask the students to make connections with pervious topics and create their own maps or allow a student to select a connecting topic from the map and design their own question showing the link. There are many methods you could use in designing tube maps. I would like to thank Mr Taggart an English teacher from Northfield for showing me this resource he had with it's endless uses. Click the image for a pdf template and poster or follow this link to the software designer.

Ski Slope Learning

What is Ski Slope Learning and why use it? Every student learns at different rates and has different strengths. Ski slope learning allows for students to get to the same end result from different starting points.

If you think about ski slopes there are several different degrees of difficulty, with green being the easiest and black being the hardest, however no matter which route you take you always get to the bottom of the slope. Applying this method to a structured lesson environment allows pupils to work at their own individual paces and has differentiated routes to ensure all pupils achieve the learning objective. The ski slope method also provides opportunity for pupils to work independently and allows for rapid progressions.

When it comes to the black slope, it’s a place where you can challenge pupils to think outside of the box and apply the knowledge in new ways. This will help stretch and test the most able (G+T) students understanding and comprehension of a topic.

How to introduce Ski Slope Learning

There are two different ways in which I use Ski Slope Learning.

1. PowerPoint Method

The first is through power point. As you can see on the page before there is a list of columns where I break my questions up into the stepping stones to achieve the learning objective.

I allowed the pupils to decide their own route and starting point. However they needed to be in the red column at least by the end of the lesson. It is a good way to clearly show progress in lessons by levelling individual columns.

This took a while to train my classes not to do every question in each column and to also make sure pupils didn’t deliberately try to avoid the harder questions. Once the pupils are trained, they are able to take responsibility for their own learning and progress at a pace personalised to their own learning.

2. Worksheet Method

For this second method I created a series of levelled worksheets for a given lesson, some I provide more structure and guidance than others. For example fill in the gap questions to begin with. This can easily be replicated in other subjects when looking at the amount of support you can give a pupil in writing structures.

For this method I don’t always have four worksheets, for some classes only two is necessary while other more mixed ability classes’ four sheets are necessary.

It is important to note that the difference in this method is that the routes are is pre planned out for the pupils. It allows the teacher to make sure all pupils are challenged appropriately. I try to pre plan who will receive which starting point work sheet before the start of the lesson, however this can often change depending on the success a student has made at the beginning of a lesson.

(If I am getting observed I will often print the different worksheet out on coloured paper to allow the differentiation and challenge to be clearly visible to an inspector.)

The Interactive Seating Plan is something I created within my NQT year and will certainly give you the wow effect in observations. It colour coordinates pupils progress in relation to a pupils assessment points throughout the year and their individual target. It's quick and simple to fill out and only takes 5 minutes to complete. All you need to do is copy the data from a sims or serco spreadsheet, into the data sheet for the seating plan. Then it's as simple as putting a number in a box, namely the pupils number, on the seat you want them in and excel does the typing for you.

So why use it:

• Easy to use referral tool in observation feedback sessions

• It looks professional

• It clearly shows progress

• It is easy to identify students who need intervention

• Allows you to identify your target students (fsm, pupil premium, G&T and SEN)

• It shows all necessary data, for inspection and observations (FSM, PP, KS2 grades, KS3 grades, MEG and even a box for SEND and G&T info)

• It's quick and simple to create

• Updates the seats automatically when you add or change data in the spread sheet.

• Moving a students seat is as easy as typing a 1-2 digit number.

Miss B

Guide to Making the Seating plan work

Click the images above to download the guide.

Grade System	KS3	KS4
NEW - GCSE (1-9) TRACKS AP GRADES Track progress using students Assessment Point Grades/Levels. Grades Range from N, B, , 1c, 1b, 1a, 2c, ... ..., 8a, 9c, 9b, 9a  MEG (Minimum expected grade) has now changed to predicted.
NEW - GCSE (1-9) TRACKS AP GRADES Track progress using students Assessment Point Grades/Levels. Grades Range from N, B, 0, 1-, 1, 1+, 2-, ... ..., 8+, 9-, 9, 9+  MEG (Minimum expected grade) has now changed to predicted. SEND and EAL indicators have been added.
NEW - GCSE (1-9) TRACKS AP GRADES Track progress using students Assessment Point Grades/Levels. Grades Range from N, B, 0, 1, 1.25, 1.75, 2, ... ..., 8.75, 9, 9.25, 9.75  MEG (Minimum expected grade) has now changed to predicted. SEND and EAL indicators have been added.
Original - Tracks AP grades Track progress using students Assessment Point Grades/Levels. Grades Range from U, G-, G, G+, F-, ... ..., A+, A*-, A*, A*+ and levels range from N, B, 1c, 1b, 1a, 2c, ... ..., 8b, 8a MEG - Minimum expected grade LOP - Levels of progress
New - Tracks BT, OT & AT After a request, I've made this new version to track below target (BT), on target (OT) and above target (AT) within the assessment point boxes instead of grades or levels. MEG - Minimum expected grade

Numeracy Across the Curriculum

It is my belief that every student has a right to be numerate and I'm launching my campaign of Numeracy 4 All in an attempt to raise awareness of this issue. More often than not schools are focused on developing literacy across the curriculum and put numeracy on the  back burner. This is mainly due to the teachers own negative opinions and fears of mathematics. To tackle numeracy across the curriculum and you need to start with the teachers.

To empower and improve upon numeracy across the curriculum I believe there is a set logical order schools should follow, which is under pinned by the principle of starting small and aiming big. See figure 1 'the numeracy chain' below.

The Numeracy Chain is a chance to chunk down a challenge and solve the problem from the root. I think I should make it very clear here to say  teacher fear and teachers being innumerate  are two separate arguments. In my personal opinion all new teachers have to pass QTS maths tests and it has been this way for a while. The majority of teachers can complete basic numeracy tasks, however ask them to put these tasks into a lesson you will find many teachers have the same fear as our own students of getting it wrong and embarrassing themselves. Therefore it makes sense to start with the teachers. 

Teachers

Talk to teachers from across the school, see what they are already doing, you might just be surprised. Ask them about how they feel about numeracy and what they think numeracy is. Talk to staff as a whole about numeracy and create a numeracy working party.

Enthusiasm

Launch and stress the importance of Numeracy 4 All to staff. Begin with a bang, have guest speakers into the school, run charity events, have a theme and ask every member of staff to put a numeracy activity, however big or small, within their lessons. Encourage staff to seek you or the numeracy working party out to ask for help, support and ideas. Provide staff with a subject matrix and links to fun and exciting maths topics around your weeks theme.

 

Subject Knowledge

Talk to staff and ask for feedback from departments on what mathematical knowledge will be useful for them and what topics do they need support with. Make videos of the generic topics for the staff to use within lessons or to watch for their own development. This will improve teachers confidence. I would also look into running CPD sessions for those departments most in need of support.

Resources

Get staff talking and sharing ideas, create a teaching and learning blog or even just a simple sharing display within the staff room, where staff can pin up their numeracy ideas, this can be done anonymously for those staff scared of the 'geek' factor . Use the numeracy working party members and teaching & learning team to present ideas and resources that can be used across many different departments.
(Please see the Resource Section for ideas.)
 

Numeracy Across the Curriculum

Hopeful once you have covered all of the above and have in place a support structure for staff whether it's in the form of videos, a numeracy co-ordinator, a blog or regular staff training; you should be seeing that numeracy is spreading across the curriculum. To  continue your forward projection work with departments to make these numerical aspects clear within their own schemes of work.

All of the above is just my opinion on the matter and the order in which I have decided I need to follow to support my colleagues in developing numeracy 4 all. I really am lucky enough to be working at an amazing school, which is like a family. All staff are extremely supportive of the core subjects.

Miss B