When you think of the word ‘maths’, what springs to mind? Often straight away people will say things like “I hated maths at school” or “I wasn’t good at maths!” Other people will also say that they loved maths at school as they felt confident in the subject. Moreover, people have the idea that people are either a “Maths” person or an “English” person. As a teacher, I need to do everything that I can to change these views and positively encourage the subject of maths as much as I possibly can.

When I was at school, I was guilty of having the opinion that I was not very good at maths, and I lacked confidence in the subject. Looking back, from having this attitude it really affected the efficiency of my learning in the subject as by going to the class with a negative mindset, it just made me concentrate on getting through the class rather than actually concentrating more on the work. In retrospect, if I went to the class with a positive attitude, I would have gained so much more from lessons. Therefore from this input, I have learned that as a teacher I will need to help pupils as much as I can to encourage to them that maths is an extremely important subject and to give them positive attitudes in many different ways.

There’s much a teacher can do to help promote a positive attitude to maths. Even something as little as a smile whilst teaching can have the biggest impact, because if the teacher acts inspiring, the children will pick up on that and will feel a sense of inspiration and encouragement also. In addition, the teacher can use many interesting ways to liven up lessons, for example by using Show Me Boards, the Interactive White Board or games. All of these play a part in helping children to see maths as good rather than having the false assumption that it is difficult and boring as it gives them a sense of enjoyment. By feeling this positively about the subject, it will improve children’s confidence without them even realising it because if they are enjoying themselves, they will feel a sense of success and achievement rather than giving up easily if they find they got a question wrong. This positivity will give them more motivation to be resilient and try again if they make a mistake, which in turn can increase the efficiency of their learning.

This workshop was very eye opening because it made me realise just how important it is to encourage positivity in maths as by having even the slightest negative view of maths can really affect how much you get out of the lesson. In short, positivity and optimism really do lead to success, and it is my job as a teacher to promote that in not just maths and all subjects as much as possible.