January 28, 2016
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The problem with school uniforms.

There have always been discussions in the media surrounding the wearing of school uniforms and for me the issue is one of contention. I am neither for nor against the wearing of uniform but I do have strong feelings surrounding the issue. There are no legal documents that support school uniform and schools are free to develop their own policy on school uniform. This is true in both England and Scotland. The department for Education (England) offers guidance which can be viewed here and Scotland offers guidance regarding developing policies here .

Just this month a headteacher in England sent a note home to parents that in my opinion was harsh and uncalled for. The comments surrounding the article varied and I will attempt to justify why I feel that she was in the wrong in sending a generic letter home to all pupils.

Firstly the letter states that she is thankful for the parents that have sent their children in to school “clean and ready to start the new week” >> Well thanks for that I am sure that those parents feel great knowing that you appreciate that…

I do not dispute the fact that these are important life skills to learn. You must be prepared for the day ahead by having a wash and putting on clean clothes and ultimately being presentable however the onslaught starts here two lines in …

“Children appear to be arriving at school in a pretty shocking state”… By whose standards is what I thought here… and if they appeared to be coming in in such a state surely there would have been prior indicators ?? And surely not the majority of children?? She then goes further stating that these children are “… dirty, unkempt and not in appropriate school uniform, if in any uniform at all.” Again I would raise the question of why has it not been addressed prior to this and surely if a child was dirty and unkempt then a care and welfare form should have been actioned. She further suggests that the children have not showered in readiness for the school week. Perhaps they do not have enough hot water at home and have to wash at the basin? I am merely proposing options here. The next attack is for the children not wearing black school shoes. This really struck a chord with me because a decent pair of leather shoes can set you back around £30 and perhaps this is not a luxury that parents can afford.

The next statement certainly annoyed me more than the rest of the letter , She states that “In a country where there is plentiful running water and washing machines, and shops like Tesco offering entire school uniforms for £10, it is a pretty poor indictment of the parenting skills of some of our families”

Let me address these points separately.

1. Yes this country is fortunate enough to have plentiful running water however that water needs heating and costs money. I propose that perhaps some families struggle to afford to heat the water as we are living in times of austerity and the choice between heating and eating is prevalent in today’s society . We only need to look at the increase in the foodbanks to realise that this is a real issue.

2. Washing machines. These are a luxury that again some people can not afford, they cost money to function and perhaps, for the fortunate that do own a washing machine, washing is only done on a weekly basis? Furthermore a washing machine costs in excess of £150 to buy plus £30 average delivery and if you want it installed that’s another £30. I propose that perhaps for some of the families that maybe, just maybe they had a machine but it has broken and they can not afford to fix it .

3. A full uniform for £10? This I can wholeheartedly say is simply not true. A pair of trousers or a skirt will set you back approximately £5 with a twin pack of shirts another £5 then there is a jumper or cardigan to buy which would be roughly another £5. Already we are at £15 and we have uniform for one day … Without buying shoes, vests, tights , socks, school bag , gym kit , gym shoes….

4. Poor indictment of parenting skills>> Now this is a fantastic way to build relationships with the parents. This implys that these parents are unfit to look after their own children and smats of superiority on the headteachers part.

The whole letter is a disgrace. It comes across as derogitary to parents and reeks of sarcasm that fails to be anything other than rude.

Let me set the context for my feelings.

First and foremost I am a mother of four.

Three of which are BOYS!!

If you are a fellow mother of boys then you will no doubt be able to relate to the following. Keeping them clean is no mean feat. My middle son(age 9), for example, needs a full change top to toe daily on account of the fact that ” I just play football mum…” I am fortunate enough to have a washing machine and it is never off. My youngest son (7 years old) also needs a full change of clothes daily , the reasons for which still remain a bit of a mystery. It pleases me that there is so much creativity going on in his classroom, I wish however that he would manage to be creative perhaps on paper and not all over his clothes. My oldest son (10 years old) manages to survive the intended two days until his trousers need changed…phew.

Now this is where I can perhaps put forward my opinions. I have 15 pairs of trousers, 15 shirts/polo shirts, 9 jumpers. That is roughly around £160 of uniform. Three pairs of shoes @£30 each is another £90, reaching a total of £250 of essential uniform. Not including socks and underwear but I am sure you see my point.

That is a whole lot of uniform !! I think it should be noted here that ironing day is a Sunday, so for those of you that may wish to comment, I am well aware that three each would be ample… granny dinned it into us that there is ” one for wearing , one for washing and one clean’ however, I have a full and busy university course and football training for the boys on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I also refuse point blank to do any ironing after 9 pm and between the football training , showers and bedtime stories it is always after 9 before I sit down. Hence why so much uniform. Washing is done daily but ironing is strictly kept to a Sunday.

My oldest son regularly looks unkempt due to the fact that he has real issues with getting his hair cut. He has a diagnosis of ADHD and with that comes some sensory issues and as far as family time goes I would far rather spend time not arguing about the fact that he desperately needs a haircut and spend quality time with a happy long haired wee boy. This poses questions in itself however and I know that If he presented in my classroom I would most likely raise concerns over his appearance. I am very fortunate to have a good relationship with the school and they are well aware of his needs and as such his sometimes “unkempt ” look is overlooked. This is what I call sacrificing the unnecessary in order to have the necessary. In this instance a haircut for a happy wee boy.

I can see why people argue that all children should be in uniform. It looks nice to be all the same and ‘belong’ to a community but on the flip side are we just conforming and removing individuality? Perhaps it reduces the instances of bullying when Joe comes to school dressed in designer wear and wee Jimmy has holes in his unbranded joggers.

The issue of uniform will always remain and there will always be discussions surrounding it. My point in addressing this issue was to try and put forward alternative scenarios. Teaching and education as a whole is a tricky business and as such we must all be aware and sensitive to any and all issues that arise. Perhaps below the surface there are a multitude of issues that the children need resolved and by confronting , shaming and humiliating parents over something as petty as clothes without addressing underlying issues serves to create an environment of hostility . One that is not conducive for learning and one that is certainly unlikely to be happy or safe for the children.

Below are several articles surrounding the uniform debate although it must be said that I struggled to find any from Scotland.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3407016/Headteacher-s-astonishing-blast-parents-leave-dirty-unkempt-children-way-primary-school.html

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/school-sends-up-100-pupils-9986413

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/10/pupils-sent-home-trentham-high-school-sent-home-trousers-tight_n_8115028.html

November 13, 2015
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Maths is everywhere !

It would appear that maths is permeating my entire life at the moment. This is undoubtedly because of the looming assignment I am due to write and the several books that I am dipping into. However, I have found myself thinking quite a lot recently about the ways in which maths is seen and used in everyday situations and I am finding that I am enjoying these little eureka moments. I have to admit that this is most likely due to the inputs I have had recently for the mathematics elective at university. It has made me realise that maths is, in fact, embedded everywhere around us and really I had not thought deeply about the way in which maths plays quite a crucial part of everyday life.

Recently, during one of those eureka moments, I realised what was really meant by instrumental understanding and relational understanding.

My definitions are;

Instrumental understanding is the fundamental and basic understanding of principles and concepts of number and number applications like addition , subtraction and the ability to apply these concepts.

Relational understanding means an understanding of how concepts are related and connected to each other and interlinked for example the relationship between adding and subtracting or multiplication and division.

Ma(2010) discusses this and describes the need for teachers to have understanding of key principles. The first being connectedness. Ma states that a teachers knowledge of mathematics must be fully connected in so much that the teacher must be able to see how maths concepts relate to each other in order to provide relevant next steps for the children. Thus building upon children’s existing knowledge. The next principle is Multiple perspectives which really means having the ability to approach maths in various ways. For example:

Take a very basic sum like 8 + ? = 11

There are various ways this can be solved we can start from 8 and count on (adding) up to 11 or we can subtract 8 from 11 either way the answer is the same and we have demonstrated multiple perspectives at a basic level also showing relational understanding.With this profund understanding of fundamental maths we are far better placed to then teach students successfully because we have the confidence and underpinning knowledge that enables us to do so.

Numbers are truly everywhere. books , newspapers, technology and even in our starbucks coffee…Ratio of coffee shots to milk = perfect latte ! 🙂

November 5, 2015
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50 word Fiction @Scottish Book Trust

I love playing around with words and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to do so . I have never submitted an entry before although I love making up stories with my children. We go on all sorts of adventures with Sammy seal, who has no teeth !

My love of stories and books stems from my own childhood and is reflected in my own children’s love of text .My father would always either read or make up stories at bedtime. Of course he has continued the tradition with my children and I of course have stepped up to the plate too.

As I sat down to write this very SHORT story I realised that it was not quite as easy as I thought it would be!

To create a story in 50 words is quite difficult… This led me to think about the ways I could use this in the classroom and realised that this would need be a series of lessons before we could do this. Not such an easy task after all and for a mere 50 words.

Reflecting on this made me think that perhaps we take the written word for granted and perhaps we do not appreciate the complexities of storytelling when we have to write it down!

Here is my final submission ! Enjoy !

The wind howled. What was I thinking? I looked back towards Sail Mohr. Too late now.
Five eager children, framed by their parents, waved frantically at their new teacher.
I slowly raised my hand, smiled and waved back just as we docked.
Definitely more adventure than work.
Hello there Scoraig.

November 4, 2015
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There has been a breakthrough!

My son came home from school today and as usual I asked him how his day was…what did you do? Did you have fun ? Expecting the usual lacklustre response of “yeah it was good…” you can imagine my surprise when, with gusto, he replied “well today in maths I used rounding, doubling, subtracting, multiplying and previous knowledge all in one sum!”
Not only was I surprised that he said more than four words but the vocabulary he used was fab!
During our following discussion Zinedine told me how he “solved the sum” His sum that he was so proud of was 29-15…
“First I thought that I could round the 29 to 30 because that is easier to take away from and then I noticed that 2 times 15 is 30 and by the way mum that’s the same doubled so that’s how I used doubling AND multiplying. So then I halved the 30 that I had from adding the one which left me 15 and I just had to take the 1 away that I added to the 29 and the answer was 14 …”
Now to me that was a pretty round about way to work that sum out but he clearly used what he knew about fundamental mathematics in order for him to get the answer. The fact that he was so excited about using all his Knowledge was really, as a parent, lovely to see. It also served as an eye opener to how children apply their understanding of fundamental mathematical concepts, sometimes several at once, in order to solve problems.
It should be noted that this discussion took place in the car on the way to exchange his age 13 school trousers that were too small (Zinedine is 9 years old, he is a big lad!) and he was not impressed at having to use the little daylight left to go shopping. I told him we would be 45 minutes maximum. Zinedine looked at the car clock, in 24 hour format at 15:56, and counted out on his fingers 13, 14 , 15. He deduced that it was 3: 56 and that if we were only going to be 45 minutes that he would indeed still have some time left to play before dark. I took this moment to ask him if he would prefer it if the clock only had up to 10 and each hour was 100 minutes. The discussion went a bit like this:
ME: so if each hour had 100minute instead of 60 half an hour would be what ?
Zinedine: 50 minutes
ME: Yeah so what would you prefer then ? 100 minutes in an hour or the normal one that we use now 60 minutes?
Zinedine: I kinda like the 100 one better.
At this point I thought yeah he likes it because its easier to work with, My adult brain likes this too. However when asked why he liked it , this was his response:
“when you tell me I can get another half an hour on the computer it means I get nearly an hour”

I am now totally unsure if he now thinks that we are going to have a different time system in our house or whether he just doesn’t understand the whole concept. Either way I have a feeling that we may well be revisiting time in the future. No pun intended!
Looking at time it became quite clear that it is really quite a difficult concept to grasp with several base systems at play all at once. Namely 12, 24 and 60.
This realisation for me has partly come through talking and listening to my own children and the inputs on base systems delivered by Mathew the enthusiastic lecturer!

Never before had it occurred to me that time was anything other than just that …time. I had no prior knowledge of base systems and to be perfectly honest had no idea what one was.
Maths is complex and we sometimes forget that as adults we expect too much of the children. Without being taught a basic understanding of concepts then the actual “doing” of the maths is without depth, without meaning and ultimately without fun. It becomes, a chore, a grind which could quite easily turn into a loathing which I believe is what has happened to me. The school system I had growing up mainly consisted of rote learning and was a far cry from the more holistic approach that we have now.

Zinedine has a wonderful NQT teaching him this year who really has her finger on the ball ! Little does she know though that through her teaching him and igniting this fire she has unintentionally educated me and lit a fire for me too!

Thankyou Miss Fricker!

October 23, 2015
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~ Languages in Primary 1+2+3+4……

Languages are wonderful and diverse and according to the website ethnologue there are 7,102 known living languages in the world. This made me smile to myself. Then I realised that I only really knew smatterings of phrases from a mere 7 of those and could really only converse in perhaps 4 of them!

Unfortunately there has been a decline and 367 such languages are now recorded as being extinct. This can of course be due to several reasons. Due to migration and social movement speakers of smaller less known languages swap their native tongue for a more dominant language in order to enable them to integrate into a differing society. Inter generational transmission of heritage languages may cease as the social world around them changes. The needs of commerce and business become greater and as a consequence some languages become extinct or dormant only remaining as recordings in an archive. In the UK alone we have 13 living languages… This shows the diversity of our country as a whole. Of course there are several dialects that can be thrown in there as well but lets leave that for another post !

Table 1. Distribution of world languages by area of origin

Area	Living languages		Number of speakers
Area	Count	Percent	Total	Percent	Mean	Median
Africa	2,138	30.1	815,252,580	13.0	381,316	27,500
Americas	1,064	15.0	51,527,759	0.8	48,428	1,160
Asia	2,301	32.4	3,779,634,812	60.1	1,642,605	12,000
Europe	286	4.0	1,637,993,977	26.0	5,727,252	35,600
Pacific	1,313	18.5	6,783,496	0.1	5,166	950
Totals	7,102	100.0	6,291,192,624	100.0	885,834	7,000

This leads me onto to discussing the new 1+2 language policy currently being implemented in Scottish Education with the hope that full implementation will be complete by 2020. This policy outlines the need for our learners to “…communicate effectively in social, academic and commercial settings is crucial if they are to play their full part as global citizens.” (Education Scotland, no date)

As a nation we are particularly lazy when it comes to the acquisition of a new language. Partly to blame, in my opinion, is there has never been the “need” before. People holidaying in countries such as Spain, France, Italy and Turkey found that the locals spoke English so therefore there was no need to learn. A notion to consider is that perhaps it derives from snobbery, we as a nation perhaps expect everyone to speak English as a rule of thumb. Surprisingly though the language that is most widely spoken in the world is not, in fact, English but Chinese… There was a slight buzz in education a few years back where Mandarin was being talked about in schools, this did not amount to much at the time but it makes complete sense now in terms of developing our future workforce. A lot of trade and business is and will continue to be carried out with China and other countries that speak Mandarin and it would serve us well to be able to converse in their native tongue.

My initial view of the 1+2 approach was favorable until I started to read a little more around it. Whilst I do not fully disagree with the policy I am increasingly disheartened that it seems a little complicated in terms of deliverance. Of course at first glance it appears relatively straight forward. Children will have their mother tongue and in P1 they will commence with the learning of L2 then at P5 they will then start learning L3. Easy right.

We know that young children have the ability to absorb copious amounts of information (retaining it is subject matter for another post! ) and particularly language so it makes sense to start early. A psychology department of a Swedish University conducted a study that showed that learning a second language increased brain growth!

Embedding MFL in the curriculum and in practice, in theory, is both beneficial and makes complete sense in terms of future economic growth and development. After all we are preparing our children for the future workforce…

I propose looking at this in a slightly different way.

Say, for example we have an Algerian child whose first language is not English nor is it Arabic or French but a blend of the last two languages. We have to, of course, recognise and celebrate their native language as their L1. We then have to introduce them to L2 which for sake of argument shall be German then a short time later L3 is introduced, perhaps Spanish. At this point this child whose L1 is not English has knowledge of German , Spanish, English, French and Arabic and of course their native tongue, Algerian. Phew…. that is a Whopping 6 languages.just to be clear here is the list :

Algerian
French (limited as blended)
Arabic(also limited as blended)
English
German
Spanish

We should of course be looking at it from the point of view that their native tongue is L1, English therefore should be L2 …but then where do we fit in German not to mention Spanish?? Just to add another Spanner to the proverbial mix, Lets look at the Scots Language policy that has recently been introduced! In the Principles and Practice document, Literacy and English (2009) of Curriculum for Excellence, it states that ‘the languages, dialects and literature of Scotland provide a rich resource for children and young people to learn about Scotland’s culture, identity and language. Through engaging with a wide range of texts they will develop an appreciation of Scotland’s vibrant literary and linguistic heritage and its indigenous languages and dialects. This principle suffuses the experiences and outcomes and it is expected that practitioners will build upon the diversity of language represented within the communities of Scotland, valuing the languages which children and young people bring to school.’ (Education Scotland, P4) Now where exactly are we to fit in what could effectively be language number 7 for this particular child…

I shall let you ponder over that for a time.

Education Scotland. (No Date) A 1+2 approach to modern language [online] available from: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningandteaching/curriculumareas/languages/modernlanguages/supportmaterials/1plus2approachtomodernlanguages/introduction.asp

Accessed: 22/10/2015

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/04/what-happens-to-the-brain-language-learning

October 18, 2015
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National testing is it really the right thing to do ?

I am deeply perplexed to hear of the recent news that the First Minister announced regarding the reintroduction of National Testing. I find it difficult to understand exactly how this can be achieved under the new curriculum. With 5 levels within Curriculum for Excellence(CfE) that span the early years up into senior phase, I can not see a fair way to test at each level and still deliver a fair representation of said level? with the early stage from nursery up to the end of P1 and First level from P1 to end of P4 how can we take a child from the start of the level and the end of the level and be able to say they are attaining ? Am I just being naive? Am I missing something?

CfE was developed and “sold” as the new curriculum that would be for the learners, be learner centered, be holistic and would develop skills for life, learning and work. During the time between development and implementation of CfE, National Testing was abolished, much to the relief of the workforce. There would be no more “teaching to the test” and most teachers found themselves becoming more autonomous in the way they taught.

However, barely half a decade later it became quite clear that the support for the staff in implementing it was lacking. A report by EIS published in May 2013 showed that :

Over half (53.6%) of respondents were either “barely confident” (43.9%) or “not confident at all” (9.7%) in forms of assessment associated with CfE.
Almost two-third of respondents (63.7%) described an unhelpful tick-box approach to the measurement of CfE progress.
62.3% of respondents described the current preferred methods of gauging CfE progress as “barely useful” (44.6%) or “not useful at all” (17.7%).
More than half (54.8%) of Primary 7 teachers described P7 profiling as “not very useful” in supporting the transition process for pupils about to enter secondary school.
Almost half of respondents thought the amount of forward planning in schools was “excessive”. (EIS, 2013)

It is quite clear from these findings that any evidence pertaining to attainment is deeply flawed. How can Nicola Sturgeon say that attainment is lacking when the teachers themselves are not confident that they are actually assessing correctly in terms of CfE?

A full copy of the findings can be found HERE

Several articles surrounding the topic of stress and CfE can be found at the end of this post.

Moving on from the EIS survey there was a government initiative introduced this year:

Scottish Attainment Challenge

This was introduced in February 2015 and “…aims to raise the attainment of children and young people living in deprived areas in order to close the equity gap”. (Education Scotland, no date) Now I may just be being skeptical but…

With The Attainment Challenge came The pledge of a £100m funding initiative spread over four years (2015-2019) with this being targeted for supporting learners in schools with the highest concentrations of deprivation. The fund also focuses on particular improvement in literacy, numeracy and health and well being. The first 7 local authorities to have been identified are :

Glasgow City Council
Dundee City Council
Inverclyde Council
West Dunbartonshire Council
North Ayrshire Council
North Lanarkshire Council
Clackmannanshire Council

Now whilst this is all fair and well that we are plowing all these millions into closing the attainment gap and making it about equity not just equality … there is the small matter of why the learners are not attaining ?

In the report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation(2014) about closing the gap in attainment it states that “The gap between children from low-income and high-income households starts early” and straight away I am hit with the underlying cause of low attainment … the dreaded money factor… I am not implying that low income is the ONLY factor but merely stating that many reports and research conclude that it is one of the biggest factors.

This month saw the launch of the Schools Programme which ties in with the attainment challenge and How good is our School(4) So we can see that much is being done to try and bridge the gap in attainment and support all involved. Why then do we need to introduce testing? can we not wait and see where this initiative will take us? Can we wait to see if the gap will decrease? Is it enough ?

Is it perhaps the pressure from elsewhere that is leading our first minister to reintroduce the National Tests and if so who and why ?

I realise I have likely posed more questions than answers in this post but I can not help feeling that it will be a step backwards if or when the national testing is reintroduced, back to teachers losing autonomy and teaching to the test and quite possibly the results only serving to highlight the gaps in attainment across Scotland which will benefit who ?

What we have to remember is that Scotland has it’s own unique curriculum… A very young curriculum that is not without its flaws. We need to give it and the teachers a chance to see if it is all it is geared up to be.

A final thought …

How can we compare to the rest of the world when the rest of the world is so very different.

Below is a list of articles relating to teachers stress levels caused by CfE in order from 2012 onwards

http://www.scotsman.com/news/education/scottish-teachers-take-months-off-in-stress-epidemic-1-2125794#axzz3ox0MmoIo

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13161269.More_teachers_suffer_stress_over_new_curriculum_reforms/

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/stressed-teachers-anxiety-leading-soaring-5795900

October 8, 2015
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Who is education really for?

Last year saw the increase of hours in nursery and partnership pre-school settings increased to 600 hours. This move meant that children were now entitled to sessions of three hours and ten minutes where previously a session would last two and a half hours. The increase in hours was met with mixed emotions from both the parents and the workforce.

Certainly during the consultation period there was a feeling of unease as to how we, the workforce, would cope with the increased hours in terms of finding time to update PLP’s and file photos and observations , never mind the planning meetings, full school meetings and SIP groups that were all compulsory parts of our job remit. I remember having discussions with the management teams and my own team members about where we could shave time in order to complete the elements of our job remit. of course our hours would not be increased in line with the children’s new hours so in effect we would have less time to do more work…?

The more recent announcement that nursery hours are set to increase to 1140 hours by 2021 led me to think who is the change actually for… Sure we have the early intervention strategies that we know have a great impact on children and their development. Yet on closer inspection the hierarchy reads quite differently… The new provision for under three’s for example has “workless families” near the top of the list, above ASN children. What this means in laymen’s terms is that if your family is unemployed and in receipt of certain benefits then your child is immediately entitled for early entry to nursery. (age two) This is to encourage families back into work… How many jobs last 3 hrs and ten minutes? Apart from the unfortunate truth that if these families were to work they would most likely lose the benefits that they desperately need to stay alive and support their families. The swap from benefits to wages would likely put the family at risk of slipping well below the poverty line. So my question to this particular issue is …Should we not be looking at benefit reform in order to ensure families willing to work are supported and not using education as an excuse to pump up the workforce ?

Could it be that, perhaps, the guise of early intervention is in fact a ruse in order to boost the workforce…

If we take a step back and really look at how our Curriculum was developed we can see that Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is centered on a holistic approach with emphasis on experiential learning and taking the child’s learning forward at their own individual pace. Of course it ties in nicely with GIRFEC and SHANNARI. Fantastic just what we needed but how did this develop? Is it new innovative thinking? I think that that is exactly what we would be led to believe. However looking back in history and more specifically at two particularly important, in my opinion, reports: The Hadow Report (1931) and The Plowden Report (1967) we can see that CfE is not in fact new at all. We need only look at the recommendations from these reports to see that the principles of CfE are evident in both these reports. Why then has it taken 80+ years to act upon. And furthermore Why are other recommendations still being ignored?

Particularly poignant is the age with which the Plowden Report regards as appropriate to enter formal schooling. Within the report it discusses school starting age as seven in line with many other countries yet also takes into consideration the importance of maturation and the difference between developmental age and chronological age. The concluding recommendation was that children should start at around the average age of 5 years 6 months, a far cry from today’s intake of primary one’s who can be as young as 4. We can see from the Swedish and Finnish models that starting later serves only to better prepare the children and it is clear from statistical evidence that the later start does not hold them back. On the contrary, Swedish children at age ten surpass our own British children in terms of attainment.

Throughout history the concurrent theme in our education system, in my opinion, has been the focus on the workforce, thus political and economical motives…

When are we going to realise that education is about the children.

We have to ask ourselves …

Who is it for?

Here are some interesting articles I found about Finlands Education system

The Joyful, illiterate Kindergartners of Finland

October 6, 2015
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Mathematics,what does it mean to me?

As part of my recent maths elective we were looking at the Ishango bone. Some mathematicians may argue that this form of tallying cannot be called true maths as there are no concepts of fundamental mathematics involved . However I am not convinced. Maybe it is because we take for granted numbers and the way we use mathematics in today’s society or maybe it is because we really cant accept that there may well have been, to quote a very important man, ” life Jim , but not as we know it …”

We only need to look to some of the more isolated hunter-gatherer tribes in Amazonia which only have words for “one”, “two” and “many”, and other tribes that only have words for numbers up to five. It just shows that in the absence of settled agriculture and trade,there is little need for a formal system of numbers. So this then raises the question again of Why do we need number and when did the concept of number as we know it today start.?

To help us as a group understand the concept of number we were set the task of devising a new number system, this was not as easy as we thought.

Our system of number

After reflecting on what we as a group came up with and looking closely at what we had come up with. It was clear we were using what we already knew… Shape, a mathematical concept, represented by the “names” of the numbers, merely inverted.

For me, personally, I was struggling to understand the basic concept of not having number. Then I had a Eureka moment. Perhaps…Just maybe … this is how our very youngest learners feel when presented with pages of numbers and asked to “do” sums.

Understanding that we, as adults, take for granted number and just accept that that is the way that it is. We often forget that we were also that young child that had no idea what numbers were. On reflection, I feel it is fundamental in our approach to teaching mathematics to get back to grass roots and develop our own understanding from the very basics of what is a number.

My love/hate relationship with Mathematics is becoming blurred…..

October 4, 2015
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Reflections on The Marte Meo approach

This Saturday I had the fantastic opportunity to represent CSNIPs, the charity that I am involved with, at the annual Early Years Scotland (formerly SPPA) conference in Glasgow. As well as a fantastic opportunity to network for the charity this was a great opportunity for CPD.

I was looking forward to listening to Maria Aarts, the founder of Marte Meo International, talking about her work. This was the first I had heard of this approach and was curious to learn more about the Developmental Support program that has been used in over 43 countries.

Maria Aarts is an interesting women and it was clear as she spoke that she is passionate about the program she has built. Yet the more I listened to her the more I recognised smatterings of Phoebe Caldwell’s Intensive interaction approach, The Son-Rise program from America and Suzanne Zeedyke’s connected baby.

Although the concepts were not new to me I had never quite seen them used altogether. What really caught my attention was that the family are fully involved from the outset. They are asked what they wanted to get from the program and where they expected to get to, what Maria referred to as the When , What and Why. The program was then tailored around where the developmental point of the child is and the needs of the family.

Maria Aarts started her work as an autism specialist and was involved in child psychiatry and it is clear from her publications that most of her research and work has been developed with autistic children in mind. However in saying that I do believe that what works for an autistic child will work for children who fit the developmental norm too, and this has been proven with her program being used all over the world.

Key points of her program are:

providing detailed and practical information for parents
supporting social, emotional and communication needs of children
identify and activate and develop supportive interactions
enables formerly disturbed developmental processes to be repaired

As much as I admire the work that Maria Aarts does and the achievements she has had. I cant help feeling disappointed that It is not a new approach for me.

October 2, 2015
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Things are getting interesting …

Having already established in my previous post, I really was not a lover of maths (note the past tense) it would appear that the subject is warming on me.

Let me explain why.

Having recently opted to embark upon the discovering mathematics elective module I walked into the first lecture feeling rather nervous. I should not have been. Within five minutes I was feeling super excited and not at all nervous.

Ok, so excited and maths are definitely two words that I would never normally paired but when the lecturer (whom I shall refer to here on in as Mathew) oozes enthusiasm and is clearly and obviously extremely excited about the subject, it becomes increasingly difficult not to swept up in the tide of excitement alongside him.

Suffice to say I left that lecture with a completely different attitude towards the subject.

Cue lecturer 2 (who shall be named Matilda) who like Mathew was super excitable and passionate about what she was teaching. Again I found myself, in her lecture, in the strange situation of feeling excited about Math!

I now understood why I had been feeling the way I had previously been feeling about maths… I had maths anxiety! The realisation that this was in fact a real problem made me feel strangely calm and with a need to find out more about this new “condition” and what it meant for me as a learner and indeed as an educator.

During the course of my research I came across an interesting journal article;

“Although many children encounter difficulties in arithmetic, the underlying cognitive and emotive factors are still not fully understood.” (Mamarella et al, 2015, p2)

Their study, which is ongoing, looked at verbal and visuospatial

short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) performance in

children with developmental dyscalculia and mathematics anxiety in

comparison to typically developing children. Their findings showed

that children with high math anxiety had a poorer performance than

the control group of typically developing children in the visiuospatial

element of WM and as such it is important to recognise that this can

have educational and clinical implications.

The study goes on to discuss a variety of interesting facts and was

actually a really interesting read but what I took from it and what my

understanding is is that as teachers we must be aware that math

anxiety can be a real stumbling block in the way in which children

learn and we must be mindful of that when lesson planning.

We should also be looking at ways in which to alleviate the anxiety in the first instance.

For more information on STM and WM click here

I am, by nature, extremely curious and when something intrigues me it becomes almost a challenge to find out more. Not merely in terms of satisfying my own curiosity but also in order to develop my own understanding and confidence.

During this lecture we were presented with a maths problem to solve:

“In a warehouse you can obtain 15% discount but you must pay 20% VAT. Which way would you prefer your final bill to be calculated: with discount first or with VAT first?”

Clearly this is a pretty basic problem to solve, but the point of the task or rather what I took from the task, was the intention was not to feel smug about working the problem out but rather in the understanding of the why and how different people work things out. The group I was working with had various methods and various starting points and this enabled me to see that although our answers were the same there were multiple ways that we used in order to get to that point.

My point…

Children are no different.

Reference

Irene C. Mammarella, Francesca Hill, Amy Devine, Sara Caviola & DénesSzűcs (2015) Math anxiety and developmental dyscalculia: A study on working memory processes, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 37:8, 878-887, DOI:10.1080/13803395.2015.1066759