Maths is a subject that I never really had much confidence in, and thinking back to when I was a child, I remember feeling such pressure to keep up with those who managed to grasp concepts that I found myself so often struggling to get my head around. I feared the thought of failure more than anything else and convinced myself that I was just one of those people who couldn’t do maths.

Now in my early twenties, I still feel the same way. During my placement in first year the thought of teaching maths filled me with such dread. I often found myself doubting my ability when explaining even the simplest of concepts. This made me realise that to teach maths successfully, I needed to have a deep, broad and thorough knowledge and understanding of maths, and by extension, the ability to explain concepts in a meaningful way. This meant going back to basics and trying to pinpoint the reasons for my lack of confidence in maths.

I chose this module as my elective for this exact reason; Discovering Mathematics is designed to help explore, reflect and critically examine various topics in fundamental mathematics and enhance subject knowledge.

I hope this module helps me to become a bit more confident in my ability to teach maths so I can be a better teacher, and one who has children that are more confident in their ability to learn maths.