Educating Yorkshire: Genius or just another Big Brother?

Educating Yorkshire has been a huge hit, with viewing figures in excess of 3 million, making it one of the highest watched programmes this year for channel 4. This got me thinking about how there is a genuine interest in finding out what kids are getting up to in schools. Of course there are positives and negatives to putting cameras in schools for all to see, an invasion on students privacy for one, as I am sure most don’t want their parents seeing what they get up to at school. Also are there repercussions in the future for these students when they try and get a job?

These are all important questions and 1984 always pops to mind when you talk about adding more cameras to an already over invasive society. But I think in this case getting an insight to the everyday lives of students as well as teachers, gives the everyday person much greater respect for a sometimes under appreciated job. One thing I am interested in exploring is how schools can implement this on a smaller scale and that doesn't take up to much a teacher’s already busy schedule.

First of all what are the possible advantages of implementing something like this? One of the big advantages is cutting down on low level disruption. If students know they could be being watched by their parents they are much less likely to act up as they know they could get a telling off at home. This is similar to the Hawthorne effect where an experiment was carried out on workers in two workplaces to find out what effect light had on productivity. What Hawthorne found was that productivity would increase during the experiment and then slump again when it was concluded. He concluded that the workers were more productive if they knew someone was taking an interest in their work. Whether or not having students knowing their parents could be watching would improve class behaviour or even results remains to be seen but it could be a possibility.

Another positive is getting more parent involvement in the school. Too often the only contact parents have with schools is a parents evening once a year. Being able to see their children in class and to see how they actually act in class could give parents a much better insight into how their children are actually doing at school. They can then push them on if they are acting up in class and get them to knuckle down and likewise if they are doing well they can reward them and encourage them to keep going.

There are of course negatives to an experiment like this. The first is teacher’s time, with an already busy schedule do teachers need another gimmick that will distract from the actual teaching of the class, and will students just act up if they know they are being filmed. I think this is an important question and if the project were to be time consuming than no this wouldn't be worth it but as I will point out later in the article there are quick and easy ways in which you can set this up.

Another important area to bring up is whether more cameras in life are a good idea. The average person is already caught on camera 300 times a day, do students and teachers need another aspect of their lives monitored? I think this will be the biggest reason a project like this won’t get off the ground as it is already such a sensitive topic and it may cause issues with some parents.

The time and cost of implementing a project like this I believe could be very little in terms of time and completely free financially. Having worked in a small company you often have to find solutions to problems quickly and cheaply. I had to find a way to deliver a talk to teachers all over the world all at once and for it to be cheap or free but also look professional. At first I thought this was an impossible task, but after a bit of research I quickly discovered there were a number of free services out there that could deliver exactly what I needed. The one downside side of using a free service is there might be the odd advert but these have a minimal impact most of the time.

The main streaming software I used was Ustream, this is free to use and viewers watching don’t have to sign up, which helps keeps things simple. One of the really good features of this is that you can link it to your Facebook page, making it really easy for parents to find and access. Ustream will also record and store the live stream for you and save it on your account and on your Facebook page as well. So parents that are at work or are busy can watch it later when they have some free time, making it more accessible to everyone. All you need to set this up is to have a webcam linked to a computer with a view of the class, and then you just click ‘Live Broadcast’. This will then go straight out to your live stream account and Facebook page for parents to watch.

As teachers it is important to find innovative and interesting ways to incorporate technology into the classroom, but I think the key thing is to make technology work for you. By using a free streaming service and a webcam, it is a cheap and simple solution that won’t take up much time but delivers something exciting for parents, teachers and students. This could even be used as a marketing tool for schools allowing them to show prospective students and parent’s fun and rewarding lessons with the schools best teachers. This could be much more effective and then the traditional prospective and power point presentation and show off the best qualities of your school in real time.

Secondary Schools set to increase amount of maths teaching time

According to a recent survey, more than a quarter of schools are planning to increase the amount of time spent teaching maths next year. This will be in time for the new Maths GCSE set to come in next September. Half of schools have said they will introduce new training programmes for staff and a third of schools are going to recruit more maths teachers.

The survey finds that 28 per cent of secondary schools plan to increase teaching time for maths by up to one hour at key stage 4, while 27 per cent aim to do so at key stage 3. Half of secondary leaders say they will introduce a programme of professional development for maths teachers and 36 per cent say they will recruit additional staff.

The findings were carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research for the department of education, who surveyed school leaders and teachers.

Reforms to the maths Curriculum aim to make it more challenging, with a greater emphasis on problem-solving. The syllabus has been expanded by a third, with new topics including ratio and proportion. Students will be required to tackle financial mathematics and learn mathematical formulas by heart.

School reform minister Nick Gibb said he welcomed the news that teachers were responding to the new course by increasing the amount of time spent on maths. “Our plan for education is ensuring more pupils will benefit from an increased focus on maths and other key academic subjects,” he added.

The survey finds that half of schools are planning to retain existing systems for assessing students’ progress in the new national curriculum, introduced this September, while 23 per cent say they are going to use a new system developed by their school or group of schools. A further 19 per cent are undecided.

If you think you are good at maths, this guy is on another level!

A fantastic TED talk from Arthur Benjamin, who makes maths exciting and fun. He races calculators and guesses birthdays, as well as teaching a few interesting short cuts to solving maths equations. Watch the video to find out how he does it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic

How do Primary School Teachers use 10ticks Maths Worksheets

10ticks maths worksheets can be used in a huge variety of ways, and have been designed to cater for all learning styles. 10ticks has 4 main types of maths worksheets:

• Traditional exercises to consolidate basic skills taught
• Investigations to let students explore mathematics at their own pace
• Puzzles involving key concepts centering around fundamental mathematical skills
• Games providing fun ways of reinforcing key skills without the monotony of repetitive exercises

Mr Ayres uses the maths worksheets to aid his lesson planning, during lessons, for homework, group activities, individual consolidation for exercises to provoke discussion, reinforcement and introductions.

“We use 10ticks across the school both for homework and in lessons, the variety of tasks

offered coupled with the depth of questioning make them an invaluable resource. The

calculated colouring sheets are especially popular.

The 10ticks maths worksheets cover everything I could possibly want from simple introductions to complex extensions for top end Year 6. They challenge pupils to apply their knowledge in different ways and have given me, as a teacher, new ways of looking at, introducing and reinforcing concepts.

Tasks such as the prime pirate maze or the factors and multiple game test pupils true understanding rather than relying on simply regurgitating methods or working through procedures.

Pupils throughout our school have benefited from using the 10ticks maths worksheets through the

reinforcement offered, each sheet provides plenty of questions allowing pupils to better

internalise and assimilate concepts and relationships quicker and with much greater levels of

retention. Pupils enjoy the variety on offer and the mix of challenge and accessibility.

The variety and the depth of work on offer. Also the range, with one scheme I’m able to

introduce the very earliest of number concepts right through to post GCSE work. Pupils are

familiar with the layout and expectation and the ability to differentiate is a real bonus.

10ticks is always my first port of call when designing a new topic, to the point where I often look

at what is available through 10ticks and work backwards incorporating the tasks into my

planning and teaching. A typical day for me, especially as I teach two sets across Year 5 and 6,

involves either photocopying the sheets that best fit the needs of my set. I like to go for a mix

of procedural sheets that offer repetition of methods coupled with some of the more

challenging / abstract sheets to provide extension and homework. If pupils are fairly well

through a topic I will look for one of the games to provide pupils with an opportunity to put

their understanding into practice.

I always look for a variety of tasks throughout the week, ranging from collaborative group work

activities to individual consolidation tasks and exercises that will provoke discussion. 10ticks

provides exactly this.”

Mr Scale of Teby Junior School:

“I mainly use 10ticks maths worksheets as a differentiation resource. 10ticks is great for targeting key areas that most schemes do not cover. I also use the activities as homework.

For me it is a comforting to know that I have extensions ready for all the topics regardless of the varying abilities within the same year groups, whether the children are in Years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6.

They feel comfortable to attempt the activities even if they haven’t attempted the topics before because the worksheets are clearly explained with examples. The examples are clear and easy to understand.

I also use the maths worksheets as an extension activity for my high achievers; I will often use them depending on the weekly topic i.e. If we are studying percentages I will search for percentages, using the New Search Tool, find the relevant pages and check that they are more difficult than my current

work. They always are, because the worksheets progress in difficulty, which is perfect in helping me to push my students on. The benefit of the new symbol system for the 2014 curriculum means that I can give students in the same year group different difficulty levels without them knowing”.

10ticks Friday Maths Puzzle

Can you figure out the answer to this weeks Maths Puzzle?

Free Halloween Maths Worksheets

Our world famous free Halloween Maths Worksheets are now available to download from our website. If you are already signed up on the 10ticks website, you will just need to sign in and the free Halloween Maths worksheets will be available to download in your User Area. There are lots of fun games and puzzles, perfect for both teachers and parents to use with students and children.

If you have signed up to 10ticks before there are plenty more reasons to sign up as well as the Halloween worksheets. Throughout the year you will get access to Christmas maths worksheets, Easter Maths Worksheets and many others. You will also get access to our free sample packs as well.

To sign up for your free maths worksheets today just go to www.10ticks.co.uk and register as a new user.

Happy Halloween!

Work experience at 10ticks

During the summer holidays Gordon from Manchester, came into the office and did some work experience with us. He was a great asset to the team and proved himself more than capable, helping us with research, testing and even creating some new maths resources. Below is his account of the week and what he learnt from his week in the 10ticks offices.

During my week of work experience at 10ticks.co.uk, I’ve been given the chance to experience, first-hand how a company is run.

As everybody would expect, working hours normally start really early and end late, and this is no different at 10ticks. During my week here I’ve seen the pure commitment of the staff towards their work, one example would be Chris. As people would know waking up early in the morning is one of the gruelling challenges that one must overcome every morning however Chris’s passion for his work is so great, that he manages to arrive at work at 6 o’clock in the morning, the time at which I would still be lost in my dreams for the next morning of work.

Throughout my wonderful 8 hours of work each day, I was given lots of different tasks, they range from simple stuff such as creating maths worksheets to analysing and researching about the market in which 10ticks.com works. One thing that I discovered during my research is that 10ticks is one of many different maths education sites in the world, and that there is a lot of competition, one of them being Mathletics (Take notice that MATHS is spelt wrong here), which is owned Rupert Murdoch. Some people may think that 10Ticks has no chance of going against him, but the fact is 10Ticks is in over 60% of schools in the UK, plus many more schools worldwide, helping to increase maths standards for more than 4.6 million students. I personally think that this is colossal achievement for a company with just 5 members of staff.

Personally I really enjoyed my week learning how a company runs day to day, and helping to create more maths resources that will help students excel in maths for years to come.

Gordon.