Mr Brassington

Huge relief to have the all-clear from the EPQ external moderator. First cohort of EPQ students successfully completed! 🙌

One of the things I want to improve with as an #ALevelMaths teacher is my knowledge of #physics in order to teach mechanics without just saying "it's magic, right?!" Any recommendations of introductory books/texts for this?

Third cycle of A Level teaching and I *think* I'm getting the hang of the marking process. I think. Maybe?

I've added Gordon to my classroom #UKTeaching

In #MathsToday (or more accurately, yesterday evening) I've been trying to re-think how to introduce logarithms to my A Level group. Turns out there's a resource that does it through double-number lines! classroom.amplify.com/activity/681...

I haven't been engaging with much maths over the break, but I have just finished reading 'Math in Drag' by Kyne Santos. An excellent read which connects queer identity and the joy of maths! Here is a thought provoking quote from the end of the book, which I finished today #MathsToday

I have neglected this account AGAIN but that's because summer was for sipping cocktails, being ill/injured, and occasionally spending time with lovely people. Anyway, wishing you all the best for next week if you're returning to teaching in the UK. We've got this!

It's been a while! Exam season has really worn me down this year. Definitely not helped by one of my groups under-performing in their exams. I've worked hard with them and I'm not sure that has been reciprocated.

I feel like this is probably a good place to ask: I'd like to get more into cryptic crosswords. Any advice of where to begin (beyond the excellent minute cryptic)?

Year 11 reports written! We are truly in "digging deep to just keep going until the end of term" season!

Haven't posted much because this term has truly been insane. After having just completed year 11 mocks, I'm really thrilled to see 2 of my students getting grade 9s, and another cluster getting 8s. They've been working super hard, and it's excellent to see it start paying off!

#ukmathschat - looks like the Girls' Grammar school down the road from me is hiring a full time maths teacher. ECTs welcome! teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/jobs/teacher...

Churning through some year 7 maths papers today (I know how to have the most exciting half term imaginable!) and it's fascinating seeing which misconceptions crop up. For instance: 60 / 0.3 = 60 × 3. Totally understandable to see where it comes from, but something to actively "unteach"! #mathstoday

Half term is very important! What a treat it is to take a rest.

In #MathsToday I survived running through the A level mock papers our upper sixth formers sat at the start of term. I find post-exam feedback lessons a real pain - I just hope the pupils find them a good use of time...

Hello lovely #ALevelMaths people, does anyone have any recommended resources for teaching forces and motion in the lower sixth? I have some ideas of how to approach this topic, but any other ideas would be fabulous.

Applied to be an examiner for Edexcel GCSE maths on Monday. Received an appointment letter on Tuesday. ...there may be a shortage of examiners

Feeling very grateful to have an Inset Day tomorrow to get fully ready for the first day of term proper on Tuesday. Sending positivity, strength, and good brain days to everyone starting again this week!

I AM SORRY - 8 pages on the mark scheme for one 12 mark question?!?! Deeply regretting not printing this out and trying to read it from my phone!

Marking differentiation tests as part of #ALevelMaths and I'm quite surprised at how lenient the Edexcel mark schemes are for notation slips and theoretical errors for proof from first principles. One student followed half the process correctly, tried to divide by 0 and still earned 3 of 5 marks!

Just about to switch off my brain with some meditation via headspace. Sorely needed in a busy week. Teachers in the UK can get access to it for free!

In year 8 #MathsToday we encountered curves after looking at straight lines for a few weeks. It was a lot of fun whipping out Desmos and displaying equations of graphs that they came up with! Interestingly, someone from both classes wanted to see y=x^x, and one class stumbled upon a circle!

It was cute to hear one of my #ALevelMaths students say, "I like maths when I know what's going on." ...I certainly didn't think that when I was planning this lesson on points of inflection! #MathsToday

In #mathstoday I used this VERY juicy frequency trees question with my high ability year 10s: a cocktail of dividing in a given ratio, calculating percent of and percentage increase.

Here's an interesting observation from one of my year 10s: the surface area of a sphere with radius r matches the surface area of 3/4 of a sphere with radius r (kind of like a pac-man shape thing). My brain, literally on the floor.

A perennial headache in our department appears to be introducing straight line graphs to our year 8s (12/13 YOs). I think making an explicit connection between linear sequences and their representation as graphs helped as a starting point. Plotting is fine, but interpreting graphs is the issue!

...let's see how writing examples and marking goes this week with my fractured/dislocated finger! On my dominant hand! I guess it's a chance to learn something new.

It is absolutely WILD that Edexcel makes the absolutely baffling step to cover probability in Venn diagrams during the first year of #ALevelMaths without set notation... after the kids have already seen this at GCSE??? And then reintroduces the set notation in the second year???

Hey #ALevelMaths people - does anyone have any resources to help students practice the rearrangement following differentiation using the quotient/product rule? They can carry out the calculus bit, but they struggle to manipulate the algebra to reach the desired answer format.

It keeps happening! Just marked my year 8s first progress test of the year. The set that often struggles to make good behavioural choices in lessons has significantly out-performed my other set that generally behaves a bit better. For context, they're both mixed ability sets!

Move aside Sally Rooney, we have a new Mariana Enriquez short story collection out this week!

Any fun extension questions that you have for working with similar shapes? I can find plenty that interleave ratio!

The first batch of upper sixth marking has come in!

I felt very smug making plans and organising trips so that I could keep the final four days of the holidays free so that I could sort out my pre-term planning... guess who's been ill for the last few days!

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Radical Rest argues that it is possible to restructure our political systems by rejecting neoliberal capitalism, prioritising rest, addressing racial disparity, and seeking environmental justice. If you are a self defined activist, I think it would be worth your while to read.

100%. It kind of links into the idea of every teacher being a teacher of English. As we know, the ability to read and interpret complex worded questions is essential for success in exams. How can we expect this to happen if we aren't careful with how we present writing and terminology in lessons?