Numeracy Across the Curriculum (ITT/NQT Session)

On Monday 4th Nov 2013 I delivered a 'numeracy across the curriculum' session for my school's ITTs and NQTs. I was only given 30 minutes for this as the other half of the hour session was delivered by one of my English colleagues on 'Literacy across the curriculum'.

For the session, I used the following Prezi and included a number of ideas for getting numeracy into other subject's lessons. These ideas I will explain further here to support the ITTs and NQTs at my school, and also for anyone else who is interested in those ideas that I presented...I hope they are of use!


*Feel free to flick through the Prezi I created for the session. Throughout the presentation: I referenced the National Numeracy Organisation; briefly explained what numeracy was; gave my colleagues a question to attempt and used this to highlight the different ways students will go about solving the same problem; suggested ways in which you could/should be using numeracy in lessons; provided examples of what could be used to help (data from SIMS and a guide to the levels in Mathematics [from another colleague in my department]) and then presented 12 ideas, all of which I will explain further here (due to having to whizz through them in the session)!*

Idea #1 - Scrabble Tiles
I wrote a blog post on these previously which can be seen by going to --> http://goo.gl/rxCbrK

The Scrabble Tiles can be used in any subject by getting students to find/create key words for the lesson. The numeracy element comes in by getting students to find the sum of the numbers on their tiles. They could then even multiply this by a 'number of the day'. You could get students to estimate the highest total score for a word in your subject, would it differ in other subjects? Why? You could award extra points to students if they come up with a key word for the particular topic you are teaching; you could even award a percentage of their score, for example students could get 10% extra if the word is related to the lesson.

Idea #2 - Use the Dates

This idea is particular useful in subjects like History and English where you have historical dates to refer to or historical figures/people to mention. Get students to work out how many years it has been since certain dates, since the death of historical people. In Geography you could ask students to find the number of years since an event happened. You could get students to work out the age of people who have died by giving them their year of birth/death; you could go as far as working out how old they were in years, months, days, hours etc and could discuss conversions between time here. You could ask students how many days it is until events in the future too. For example, in RE, religious festivals such as Divali, Christmas, Eid, Easter etc. In Design and Technology (or Art) you can get students to create Gantt Charts for their projects and work out the number of days allocated to certain aspects of their projects (this idea came from @kutrahmoore).

Here's an example of a Gantt Chart. These could be used for any subject where an extended project is used - or for revision purposes in terms of creating a revision timetable!






Idea #3 - Pie Chart of the lesson

This could be used to great effect as a plenary activity. Get students to draw a pie chart to sum up the lesson. This activity could be differentiated for students by either keeping the timings simple (i.e. half the lesson I...(half the pie chart), a quarter of the lesson I...(a quarter of the pie chart), an eighth of the lesson I...(a quarter of the pie chart) etc) or getting students to use smaller time intervals, i.e. I spent 4 minutes reflecting on my progress (so a 24 degree slice would be needed to represent this). In order to do this the students will need to divide the 360 degrees in a circle up accordingly; 1 minute of the lesson would be represented by a 6 degree slice of the pie chart.

Idea #4 - Graphing Progress

Again, as a plenary activity in a lesson, or perhaps even kept at the start of every new topic in their exercise books, students can create a suitable graph/chart to 'graph' their progress throughout a topic. Here they can practise their skills of drawing suitable axis, with a consistent scale, and plotting points on their graph across a given time period. You can discuss here with students the criteria that they'll put on their 'progress' axis, whether it be a grade, level or other scale. You could also discuss the benefits of one graph/chart over another.

Idea #5 - Top Trumps

I love top trumps cards and have used them in my lessons to help engage lower ability students in their learning. I have a particular set of 'animal substitution top trumps' cards that I use regularly when teaching the topic. How these can be used in other subjects is by using key people/events and getting students to create their own top trumps cards and assign people/events certain values based on some categories you/they decide upon. For example, in English, you could take all characters from a particular novel (lets say Of Mice and Men) and then get students to rate them on their: likability, nobility, strength etc. Students then assign each character a value for these categories based on what they have learnt about them by reading the novel and then they'd play the game of top trumps in the traditional manner. To make this even more numeracy related you could get students to create sums/calculations instead of just having a single number. This way students would have to first do the sum before deciding whose card was the winner. In Science, this can be done with the Elements, perhaps taking proton number, mass number, number of electrons etc as the categories.

Here's an example of the 'Animal Substitution Top Trumps' I use...

With these top trump cards you give students values for a, b and c to substitute into the expressions on the cards. I change the values throughout the activity (to negatives, decimals, fractions etc) and then award 'rewards'/'house points' for those students holding my favourite cards (the chicken, pig and hedgehog - just in case you were wondering).

You can download this resource on the TES by clicking on --> http://goo.gl/HTzasQ









Idea #6 - Line Ups (range, median etc)

This can be used in a number of subjects where your students have to measure anything. For example, if they need to measure their heights for a given activity, or perhaps their heart rates in PE. Get them to line up in ascending order and then ask the class to work out the range, median and mode of their heights, heart rates, hand spans, weights etc. In History, you could take this idea further to make a timeline out of students for a certain event, say World War I or II, hand out to them key events, or get them to create these themselves, and then get them to line up in ascending order. Then you could calculate time frames between certain events. I can see this working well in PE too for the speeds at which they complete certain events/tasks.

Idea #7 - Venn Diagrams

Venn Diagrams can be used to compare any 2 (or more) things. In English, they can be used to compare characters in a book. In Science, they can be used to compare elements, In PE, they can be used to compare sporting events. In History, they can be used to compare historical events. In Geography, they could be used to compare natural disasters. In Music, they can be used to compare songs/bands/artists. In Food, they can be used to compare recipes. And so on... . Venn Diagrams can be used as either a starter activity or a plenary. They can also be used for revision purposes if asked to 'compare and contrast...'.

I have a resource on the TES I use when introducing Venn Diagrams (or HCF and LCM) that acts as a starter activity to get students to compare...Batman and Superman or...Shrek and Donkey. Download and adapt them here... http://goo.gl/Qh7NuQ

Idea #8 - Calculator Stories
This idea stems from a resource I found on the TES, you can download that resource here --> http://goo.gl/1AJ80j

Here it is too...

As you can see by the image to the left, this involves using a calculator to perform certain calculations to which the answers can be read by turning the calculator upside down in the 'old school' fashion where kids would type 5318008 to spell out 'boobies'!

You can therefore take any piece of text, omit any words you can spell by typing in numbers on a calculator and then turning it upside down, and then create a sum for students to answer to reveal the word in the text. You could get students to create their own or prepare them for them as a short starter activity. This would get them reading some key information for your lesson whilst practising their calculator skills. Check whether your students have their calculators on them at all times or whether you'll need to borrow some; they should all have them with them in our school (as long as they have Mathematics on the same day as your lesson)!?

Idea #9 - Cash Reward/Behaviour Tax
an idea I recently read in @TeacherToolkit's #100ideas book...

The idea is that, perhaps as part of a behaviour management strategy, at the start of a lesson you give all students a certain amount of 'money'. I have some fake £10 notes printed out that I use with ratio activities, or you could use money from board games, print your own etc. Then, throughout the lesson, perhaps when giving out reward points or warnings (in line with your school's behaviour policy), you then issue a reward cash value or 'tax' to the students. This tax could be 10%/25% of the money they have at that time in the lesson, or could just be a determined amount, say £20; a discussion here about which would be the greater amount would be lovely! The students at the end of the lesson with the most money could then 'trade' them in for a small prize or even receive an additional reward point.
I have used raffle tickets in the past in this manner (give them out for good behaviour/work, take them away for poor behaviour) and then draw a ticket at the end of the lesson and that person wins a prize. Here you can discuss the probability of them winning, based on the number of raffle tickets they have!

Idea #10 - Bananas!
I have no idea why this activity is called 'bananas' but I love it nonetheless...it is an idea I found through @TickTockMaths' '59 Starters' resource available on the TES. I blogged about it very recently at --> http://goo.gl/b9h5k1

Here's the idea...and this can be used in any subject...

You basically choose a few categories, related to your subject/lesson, and then pick any letter of the alphabet and get students to think of a key word for each category that begins with the chosen letter of the alphabet. How you get in some numeracy is that one of the categories could be 'a mathematical word' or 'a word to do with numeracy'. Get students to define their chosen word and say how/when they'd use it in their Mathematics lessons.

Idea #11 - Estimate the lesson

Estimation appears naturally in every day life. We estimate the amount of time it's going to take us to complete a journey, the amount of time we need to leave for certain tasks, the amount our shopping is going to amount to when we get to the check-out etc etc. For any subject there will be a number of occasions in your lessons where you can ask students to do some estimating. It could be the amount of time an activity is going to take them, a mark/score they believe they'll get on a test/assessment, the number of years since an event, the amount of an ingredient they will need for a recipe for a given number of people, an amount of liquid to use in an experiment, the length of wood to cut to make an object from etc etc. You could even, when asking students to estimate something related to your lesson, ask them to estimate the answer to a calculation i.e. estimate the answer to 34.98 + 23.1.

Idea #12 - Squares

I love squares. This is perhaps one of my favourite activities to do and there are so many variations of this activity that I probably need to write another blog post/book to explain them all...and even then they'll be other variations found too!

The activity 'squares' is based on a 6 by 6 dotted grid (or other square sized grid of your choosing) and players take it in turn to join two dots together, thus making 1 of the 4 sides of a square. The game continues with the other player taking their turn. Each time a square is created by having all 4 of its' sides complete the person wins that square.
How I make this more 'mathsy' is by having numbers in each 'square' prior to the start of each game, then, when a student wins a square they add that amount to their total. I've also done this when introducing algebra to get students to collect like terms (this would require letters and numbers to be placed in squares at the start).
This can be adapted for any subject by making a mega game of squares on the class whiteboard, or even better, on the IWB. Instead of writing numbers in the squares you can write questions for students to answer. So everytime they win a square they answer the question in the square they have won. The game is all about strategy and problem solving and is an enormous amount of fun!

Additionally, this can be done on a coordinate grid with a set of axes for students to call out coordinates before drawing their line (or their partners' chosen line). For example 'I want to join the points (2, 3) and (3,3). This variation could be used well in Geography when discussing maps and grid references.

Here's an extreme example of a 'squares' grid, write questions/numbers etc in the squares and each time a square is won the students answers that question or adds the number to their score!














So, that's all 12 ideas I presented (briefly) in my numeracy across the curriculum session. I hope it gives you a better idea of each and ultimately, how you can build numeracy into your lessons (if you were struggling to find a way to do so). There are loads of ways you can adapt these ideas to suit your subject/students/lesson etc I hope I've given enough examples for specific subjects? If you try anything out do let me know by commenting below or tweeting me at @mrprcollins.

Top 10 Tips for NQTs, PGCEs and ITTs

Over the past few weeks there have been plenty of blogs providing tips and advice for new teachers starting their 1st roles this year. It got me thinking about what my 'top 10' tips would be to perhaps my former GTP/NQT self and what would be useful to know before starting these training years. So, under no illusions that I'll be able to do a better job than the likes of the already written advice to trainee teachers, here are my two pennies worth (in no particular order)...

1) Find out how you work best and stick to it

This is a bit of a strange one to start off with but essentially finding a routine that suits you is vital to surviving the sheer amount of paperwork you'll have to deal with over the course of the year. Some schools may expect certain planning requirements - on one of my placements I was expected to hand in lesson plans 24hrs in advance of the lesson. This for me didn't work as I got into the habit of pretty much planning my lessons as I went; I wouldn't plan a class' lesson until their last one had been taught. I found that preparing lessons too far in advance caused me to forget what I had previously planned and it was no longer fresh in my head.
There will also be times where you'll be invited/asked/required to joint plan with other colleagues, it could be that they share a similar group to you or are teaching the same topic. This is something that I've personally found more time consuming than anything else and would much rather plan certain lessons individually and share.
Essentially, whatever works for you, stick to it and don't be afraid to do what's best for you. Over the last two years I very much left school as soon as any after school commitments were fulfilled and I did my work at home. I was pretty much the only teacher in my department that did this and everyone else stayed at school until 6pm+ planning their lessons for the next day/week. I felt bad in the first few weeks for looking like I was leaving ASAP and going home, but they soon came to see that I must have been doing just as much work at home as I would have been at school. Whatever works for you is best!

2) Have 3-4 'go to' starter/plenary activities

By having a number of 'go to' starters and plenaries your planning time will be shortened considerably. I'm guilty of jumping on board of every new starter idea I see on Twitter/TES and usually get creating new resources as soon as I see them and try them out the next day. However, I have a set of activities that I reuse on a regular basis; I 'swap' the activities around between classes and lessons so the activities do not get 'stale' with the students. These activities help you when you get stuck for ideas for lessons, you'll get to refine your skills at delivering them and your students may even like the 'routineness' of having similar activities.

3) Set up individual class folders in your school e-mail Inbox

The amount of e-mails sent round schools on a daily basis is ridiculous. You'll be sent e-mails from your house team, year team, department, NQT/PGCE trainee manager, your mentor, your assessor, all staff e-mails and e-mails from maintenance/reception asking if someone has lost a blue pen with a cat sticker on it. The best way I've found to 'manage' all of these e-mails is by having class folders set up in your Inbox. This way, any important e-mails that get sent from your students, or from other staff requesting information on your students, can be added to the individual class folder and found easier at a later date. I also have a folder for 'Mathematics' (any departmental resources/info), 'NQT/PGCE' (training dates and meetings) and one for your form too. I also get into the habit of, if I'm sat at my desk when the e-mails come in and I don't need them, deleting them there and then. I also have my school's e-mails set up on my iPhone so I can keep track of them at home without logging in externally on my computer - beware --> if you do this you will be constantly checking them, it works for me, but is it something you actually want?

4) Get feedback from your students on you and your lessons

Some of the most useful feedback I've had over my training years has been from my students. You'll find they are brutally honest at times and tell you exactly as they see it. If something isn't right they'll usually make this known to you. This, for the weak hearted can be shattering to your self esteem, but when approached in the right way you can use the feedback to improve your teaching and your students' learning. How I gather the feedback is by using a quick, simple survey on www.surveymonkey.com. I set up a short (7-10 questions) and send it round to my classes via e-mail to do for 'homework'. I make all responses random and include a question 'anything else you'd like to comment on'. I keep them random to try and get as much honesty out of my students as possible. I'd ask them things such as: do they like where they are sat, do they feel they get enough 'teacher time' in class, what activities do they like best, is there anything you particularly have/haven't liked so far this year, do you feel you are making progress in Mathematics, what can Mr Collins do to help you improve further etc.
Don't be afraid of what might come back; if it's negative - do something about it!

5) Reinforce your expectations regularly

I would recommend reinforcing your classroom expectations (in line with your school's behaviour policy) after every half-term. Do this with EVERY class, regardless of whether there your golden top set or the dreaded set 5 class. It'll make a massive difference in terms of the consistency of the behaviour you get in class. I found this out the hard way in the 2nd half of my 1st term with a few classes and it was tricky having to stamp my authority again in the new year. I've heard before that 'once you've lost them it's hard to get them back'. This is true, not impossible, but true.
I've attended a fair few training sessions on behaviour management over the past 4 years or so (including the time when I worked as a cover supervisor) and the one thing that kept coming up was to have your expectations on display in your room. These need to be in a prominent area of your room, that all students can see, and can be used on a daily basis to refer too. Go through these expectations at the very start of the year and ask if any students have any problems with them, if so discuss and re-empthasise why the rule stands, if not bring the fact that there were no issues with them up when a student tests the boundaries.

6) Record details of ALL meetings/duties

There will be loads of meetings throughout the year. There will be house/year/department meetings that all staff will be required to do. On top of that you'll have NQT/PGCE/ITT meetings and then you'll have duties to do to. When push comes to shove, the duties get easily forgotten and you'll get to the end of the day and will suddenly realise you forgot to stand in the playground for 25 minutes. However, the SLT member that randomly checks throughout the year that everyone is where they're supposed to be won't forget! They are important and you don't want a naughty e-mail sent to you asking where you were! Meetings will need to be recorded in your planner and the duration of them too. There's nothing worse than turning up to (what you believe to be) an hour meeting to be told that it's actually 2 hours. I suppose it's all about being mega organised!

7) Do something extra out of the ordinary

This to a lot of people will sound ridiculous given the 'normal' workload that is expected being more than enough to manage during your training years. However, by doing something extra out of the ordinary at your school you will gain the attention of your peers and your students and they will appreciate it. The kind of thing I am talking about doesn't have to be radical or completely insane - I don't mean setting up an 'extreme ironing club' (my University had one of these, and no...I wasn't a member). I set up a TeachMeet at my school last year and although it was a lot of extra work and caused me to liaise with a lot of other members of staff it was well worth it to see what the staff that attended got out of the evening. Other suggestions could be setting up a lunchtime/after school club that hasn't been run before, setting up a class blog (bear in mind safeguarding and child protection) or a blog for a school trip (I did this for our Spanish trip and it was very successful). It could even be organising a car boot sale or fete for the local community. Whatever it is you do, get help doing it and put yourself out there!

8) Communicate with parents and the local community

Parent's evening, in my opinion, is not the first time you should have contact with your students' parents. Ring them (especially your form groups' parents) at the start of the year to introduce yourself. You might be lucky enough to have a 'back to school' parents meeting in the first few weeks - get e-mail addresses from them to provide another means of contacting them. I've found that when you try to ring parents (during the school day) 9 times out of 10 they'll be at work or out. You leave a message and then rarely do these get returned and you end up forgetting what it was you were calling about in the first place. So I've found e-mailing is more successful. Something I wanted to do this year was use www.remind101.com to increase parental engagement, but it's not available in the UK, damn!
An extension to parents is the local community. Like it or not, when in your local area, regardless of what time of day it is or what day of the week, you are a teacher. If you get seen by parents, students or members of the community that serve your school (I'm mainly thinking the local newsagent owner or petrol station staff where you fill up on the way to work) speak to them. Be nice, smile and refer to them by name (if you can remember), you'll be surprised at how much it means to students that you know who they are still outside of school! Above all though...BE POSITIVE. There's nothing worse than moaning about your day or what you have to come that day; you don't want to be creating a negative impression of your school, its students and staff. You'll be surprised how quickly news spreads across your local community and the little 'hellos', 'how are yous' and 'thank yous' go a long way.

9) Cherish your TAs/LSAs

Other than your students these are the most important people in your school - your teaching assistants or learning support assistants (whatever they are called at your school). They have the ability to provide you with an unparallelled amount of support with your students, and mostly your most difficult students. Get to know them, what they like/don't like etc and get them involved in your lessons. This starts before the lesson if possible - show them your lesson plans or talk to them about what you intend to do and what you'd like them to do to help you out. Ask them if they have any suggestions, anything they've seen in another class/school etc. If you're getting the students to do a competitive task, add your TA/LSA to the mix - your students will love trying to beat their score/performance. Use them to model tasks to be done in class and call on them to be the 'volunteer' for the lessons examples. Of course, do so with their blessing - if you know they don't really want to be involved that much and they'd much rather just go and support your students when they're working then give them this choice.
Lastly, thank them regularly. In fact after every lesson. Oh...and get them some chocolates/wine (whatever they like) at Christmas and the end of term - they deserve it.

10) Be there for your students through their tough times

Now this last one may sound obvious as there would be no point in you wanting to teach if you didn't care about the students you teach, but I'll tell you why I've included this...

Regardless of all the training sessions and meetings you'll have to prepare you for your teaching career nothing can prepare you for the 'human' side of the job. Nothing can prepare you for the death of one of your students. Nothing can prepare you for dealing with your students lives and difficulties they face on a daily basis. Nothing can prepare you for these situations. So...all you can do is be there for your students. Let them know you are there if they need you and offer the support you can. Obviously here we have to remember all the child protection training on disclosing information and not being able to keep students 'secrets', but the role of a teacher includes caring for your students. If you know of a student having difficulties at home or at school, whatever it is, be aware of it and, without directly bringing the situation up, be there. A lot of students won't want to talk about things that are troubling them, but will want to talk to someone about anything else, whether it be how many planes of symmetry a cube has or why Arsenal still haven't bought any players in the transfer window!
They'll appreciate you being the 'relief' from their problems, however short that 'relief' may be.


So, that's my top 10 'tips'. I hope they are useful to someone out there besides me. Best of luck to all those about to start their teaching careers, or those starting new roles or new schools - here's to a great year.