Throughout primary school I generally enjoyed maths, I understood it and I found it fun being able to work out all the problems. I looked forward to the mental maths test on a Friday morning and had an overall good feeling towards maths. As I entered into high school and maths got gradually harder my liking towards maths began to decrease, especially when it came to higher maths in S5, I hated it. I dreaded going to class, and not because of my teacher, I had had the same teacher since first year and she was great! I just hated the subject. I was in a class of very high achieving pupils and I always felt that I just wasn’t as good as any of them, I felt as though I was the only one who didn’t understand and always felt like I was falling behind in class. Although I hated this at the time I did somehow manage to pass my higher and I am now in some ways glad that I have had this experience. I know what it is like to truly struggle with something, to look at a piece of work and just feel like you are looking at some sort of foreign language, to try so hard but inevitably always hit a brick wall. I believe that after having experienced this myself I will be able to sympathise with pupils in my class who are struggling and understanding how they may be feeling and what they are going through.

I believe that interactive learning is the reason I enjoyed maths in primary school, we were always using physical objects such as counters and blocks. Being able to use these objects to improve my understanding made maths seem like a bit of a game, it made it fun and an enjoyable subject to be participating in. As a trainee teacher and further on when I become a fully qualified teacher I hope to be able to use interactive learning in my maths lessons as much as possible, to try and encourage my pupils to physically get involved with maths and see what is happening when you are adding and subtracting etc. and also making maths different to other subjects, adding variation to their learning, making it fun and intriguing for the pupils.