At the weekend I had the privilege of going to CurriculumEd 2019, where I was inspired by such speakers as Christine Counsell, Sean Hartford, Claire Sealy, Mark Lehain and Tom Middlehurst.  The weekend solidified a load of the ideas on curriculum that had been going on in my head for the last year.  The title of the blog, S1 E1 Mathematics is my kind of tribute to Claire Sealy’s amazing talk on curriculum as a box set, and therefore my journey is really Series 1, Episode 1.  That’s obviously not true.  As a secondary teacher, by the time students get to us they are on about series 7, a lot of the major characters are established and they generally have an idea where the plot is going.  But S7 E1 didn’t have the same ring really.

Mainly, this blog is not preaching.  I do not know best, but I am eager to think and learn.  I have a load of ideas that may be right and may be wrong, but if I write them down then I can work out where my brain is going and it will inspire me to read more and learn from others.

I’ve been teaching since 2000, and spent a lot of that time involved in data and data systems. My thesis for my masters degree was as exciting as it sounds, “Implementing Data Analyisis systems in UK Secondary Schools.” I am pretty good at data too. I’ve worked as an Assistant Headteacher in several schools in that role and through it all I’ve come to an epifany. It’s pretty much pointless. There, I’ve said that data is pointless… or atleast whole school data is pointless.

What I’m saying is nothing new. What makes a difference is a good curriculum, high qualitily teaching and learning and then knowing your students. Whole school data analyisis is (to mix my metaphors) weighing the pig after the horse has bolted. I mean, it has its moments… and if you’ve got everything else right it’s a great tool. But the focus has to be on getting the curiculum right and creating a deeper understanding.

Why am I doing a blog? Why do I think I know better than other people? Well, that’s easy. I don’t. I have thought about this a lot personally, but I haven’t read a lot about it. I mean, I’ve done my reading and discussed it but not in the in depth levels I really need to. If I do a blog then that reminds me to read, to study and to think about what I’m doing. Do I expect other people to read this, maybe, but I doubt everyone will agree.

So, I guess the final part of this is what’s my big idea… the USP of this blog? Otherwise why would I bother. I think one of the big problems with many developments in maths are the fear that many people (including many SLTs) have of maths. I have heard it so many times (and said it myself), the … that won’t work in maths. Most of the time it’s not questioned. There isn’t the in-depth “Why won’t it work”. People just assume that maths cannot be taught like other subjects and we have some archaic laws that cannot be broken… because it has always been like that.

I’ve found that often, when you discuss maths with other maths teachers they are held back by the idea that things don’t work in maths, that we have too many discrete topics to get through, that we are a purely skills focused curriculum, that we don’t need literacy. This is where I talk about circles and half of the people in the room roll my eyes because they’ve heard it before.