The Sixty-Second Republic - Pop da pop pop, the beat don't stop until the break of term

[StaffRepFeistyClub]

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It's nice to hear that noble as thats how i do maths (though only to C at Alevel). My short term memory isnt good at all. But as you say the numbers clear out ready for the next lot. My friend (male) did a chemistry degree and he could remember all details of a hundred accounts.
I think it may be more male type brains. Dh similarly is good at card games as he knows which cards have gone. And remembers al the bends on roads etc. (But has no clue about conversations).

There are issues re inclusion.
Aside from anything else i think that the extremes of some dc may make others seem like they dont have sen as it isnt as severe comparitively.
A friends dc struggled in reception- they thought he had asd till about yr2 when assessment said no. Now he has friends. But unusual situations (sports day) still led to several meltdowns despite being 10.
Similarly yr r child who i only recently realised might have sen stood out slightly more at sports day.
My dc also did something the other dc didnt and has had a bad last 2w.
Our school always plan too much for end of terms and it eeally affects dc1.
Im seeing that even these mild differences can leave dc isolated with fewer friends. It seems to be getting worse through primary despite behaviour improving.

Ideally not moving kids on until they had got something/passed would be good.

I was 😮😮😮😮😮 at the Reality TV shocker, too. The teacher actually being from the U.K. That really is one hell of a reveal.

I'm a big fan of fingers. Fingers and calculators are not cheating.

(And I also have no working memory to speak of. I suspect it was never great but having children and ageing have destroyed it.)

My memory is good in that sense eg stages of calculations but I am appalling at names. I can remember everything that person told me and their whole back story that I’ve pasted together from things they’ve said at various times but not their name for some reason.

I think my memory relies on structures and fitting information together whereas names are just isolated blobs of information itms.

Being shit at names is not good for a teacher obviously.

We do same day intervention - but that means that the same kids miss the last 15 mins of the day, or the first 15 mins for pre-learn, taking them away from class novel/Newsround, the nice start of the day chat. Not fair, but it's the most effective thing.

I don't have anyone to run mine, so I do it in class.

Rule your class sounds like my worst nightmare. It also made me think how awful I’d find it to spend all day everyday with the same 30 kids.

That helpmehelpme business would drive me mad in minutes let alone whole days

But you can really build relationships with those 30 children. And, Rule's bunch aside for a moment, it can be so rewarding when you see that your knowledge of subtle triggers for a child with ASD can make a difference. (OK, so not when it's the laptop that's dissing him).
Mind you, it makes it harder when that child might then hurl something at you, but you have to remember it's not personal.
Mind you, with some Bobs, it might well be personal.

Dc1 was doing help me yesterday. Couldnt do 6/7 times tables for factors. Despite knowing all tables a fw months ago. Then was screeching. I was getting cross. Turned out mathletics had a fault and if you clicked back on a previous q it showed loads of x's even though it had been right and had an overall tick. It also wasnt moving to the next q.
She shouldnt have been trying to cheat but i could see why she was annoyed.

Loads of glitches on Mathletics. Drives me mad.

We do use Sumdog Mistress but I’m such a Luddite when it comes to tech I’d really rather get into all the manipulatives and hands on games.

Our neighbouring secondary was part of Shanghai exchanges. I saw the Shanghai teachers teach a Y9 class (some of whom I had taught when in primary).

Things to note:
Shanghai excludes a large number of children from their education system, through a residence system - IIRC it's something that means that many of those who occupy the lower-paying jobs (internal migrants from elsewhere in China) have to leave their children to be brought up and educated outside the city as they cannot access Shanghai schools.

Children with SEN are not educated in the same classes / schools as others. There were 2 children with SEN in the English class I observed, and the Shanghai teachers ignored both throughout.

The vast majority of pupils have tutors / informal education / extra classes outside school - so they do maths in the morning; catch up maths in the afternoon; tutoring in the evening and at weekends.

The curriculum is relatively narrow - while an English pupil would do Art / DT / History / Geography / RE / PE, none of the schools participating in the exchange offered anything like that breadth of curriculum.

The Shanghai teachers would only teach, and would only allow English staff to see, lessons on a certain range of subjects, usually fractions. This became evident over a number of years and nobody ever quite got to the bottom of why!

That's fascinating can't.

@TheHoneyBadger

My memory is good in that sense eg stages of calculations but I am appalling at names. I can remember everything that person told me and their whole back story that I’ve pasted together from things they’ve said at various times but not their name for some reason.

I think my memory relies on structures and fitting information together whereas names are just isolated blobs of information itms.

Being shit at names is not good for a teacher obviously.

Me! Me! That's me too! I can be giving detailed chapter and verse about an SEN child to an Ed Psych or an Annual review and then just have a blank spot about their name. it's hideously embarrassing.

Just had the SI email for DS. Gah.

@Piggywaspushed

Just had the SI email for DS. Gah.

Bollocks.

Ours has been confirmed today. Yawn.

Oh nopiggy and rule what a pain.

Other thing about watching the Shanghai teachers - I had taught several of those children 4 years previously, and knew they could, at that point, already do with confidence what the lesson was about. They were deeply unengaged, but playing along with the process for the audience.

The Shangai teachers, despite teaching that group for several weeks, had no idea in discussion after the lesson who did and who did not understand - it was very clear that they had delivered the lesson, that if in Shanghai a child had not understood they would have come to seek the teacher out in the afternoon, and that the expectation was that the child should come to the class the next day having mastered it. It wasn't the teacher's job to identify who was and was not struggling - the onus was on the pupil.

Oh no piggy

This Shanghai stuff is interesting.

I saw Ruth wotsername from Hamilton Trust speak once, she was great. I mean, I don't necessarily love Hamilton, but what she was saying about mastery and Shanghai maths and British children/cultural expectation was accurate.

Balls piggy

Oh no, Piggy and Rule .

I remember that TV programme. Especially the boy who brought the kettle into class so he could make himself a cup of tea, and his mum backing his right to do so .

Mark McCourt spoke about children not moving on until they'd mastered a topic in Maths and questioned whether we really needed to move a whole year group up based on age. I thought he made an interesting point but no idea how it would work practically.

Lets say there was an assessment in years 2, 4 and year 6 at primary for level 1, 2 and 3 Maths (hypothetical - no idea what the level would include or how many levels there'd need to be). Kids go onto secondary with it obvious what they've already passed and what level they need to start in year 7. Kids who were still on level 1 at secondary would need really specialist input to get basic numeracy and functional skills in Maths needed for life. Maths would be mixed age rather than mixed ability classes.

It's easier at secondary because you can timetable teachers to teach level groups and have enough teachers and space hopefully. At primary it's trickier I'd imagine because eg. the Level 1 group would need to be split or you'd have a massive level 1 class potentially as a whole cohort would be doing it for the first time plus the year 5 and 6 kids who hadn't passed it.

With something like History even if you're not very able you can still access and enjoy learning about things you know? With Maths surely you have mastered the skills you need to move on or you haven't and there's no knowledge you're learning even if you can't apply it in your book like there is with eg History. I have a boy who basically can't read or write but he's still learning about History you know? He migt never be able to take a History exam or write an essay but he's learning and retaining a fair bit by being in the lesson. Maths - I don't see how it works to move on without mastery

Sorry to still be going on about Maths.

It would be great to keep going on and on until all children got place value and the 4 ops in some sort of way. But that would mean they miss out on ever doing the stuff they CAN do - shape, measure, direction, time, money etc - and those are arguably more life-skill stuff than other things.

Meant to extend sympathy to Rule and Piggy

The maths chat is really interesting.
As a primary teacher I think sometimes things just have to 'click'.

Eg Time is taught every year from y2 up and yet lots of y6's still can't tell the time.
Most adults can though so it might be a question of maturity and basic brain development.