Number Agents

Greetings from Head Agent

I know that there are many agencies launching for real this term.  I thought I would put together some tips from my Term 1 experience. 1) Take it slow, spend time building up belief in agency. 2)When first starting in agency proper, make planning simple, aim to follow the sequence, but don't overplan.  Put more emphasis on the drama of agency.  Take time for children to learn their agent numbers and to develop their 'character.'  Make a big deal of the fact that they are held in such high regard by Head Agent and have been selected because they are experts in their field.  This elevation to expert will be a real change in mindset for some and is one of the most empowering things of a Mantle of the Expert approach. 3)Take time to set up the narrative and ritual of moving into agency, this will be the same each day and helps children to move into agency.  For example in our class we will say "and so Room One stood up, and checked into agency"  They...

The agents love it when the professor or the other characters appear over the screen.  I am by no means an expert video maker....so please as this as just an example of what I do.  Not great sound quality unfortunately. The Professor's role in agency is to lead professional development.  This professional development can be knowledge based...like this one, or it can focus on strategies for solving problems.   His job is varied according to what we need at that time.  

Developing number sense is the first step for children to feeling comfortable with math and everyday calculation, and also the path to developing a fondness for numbers and a flexibility when working with them.   When children learn the names of numbers, what composes them, what they mean, how to use them, and how to apply them to real-world referents, it makes the children feel comfortable and confident and both eager and able to engage with math. Having number sense allows children to have flexibility with numbers.  It allows them a confidence when working with numbers and a capability to make well judged estimates. I have based the Number Agents approach on this awareness and understanding.  I believe it is crucial that the 'professional development' presented to the agents takes the form of activities that allow children to do this.  I have developed some key elements within my programme that have a visual component, these work exceptionally well fo...

I can't wait to get back into agency.  So far the children have met the Knight Adder, Subtraction Shark and the Wacky Witch of Change Unknown.  Still to come are the Doubling Dinosaur, Captain Fraction and Sum Snake. I get so much of a thrill when we introduce a new villain.  Then once they have all been introduced we can really watch children's awareness of what is happening to the client correlate to what villain it might be.  It is fantastic watching their maths talk grow along with their number sense.   I love teaching this way.  Children love it and their maths ability has never been better.  It is relaxed and maths anxiety is non-existent.  Combine this with our lovely sessions of self-directed play we have a superbly relaxed room where behaviour problems are a very rarely ever an issue. The problem solving part of agency is often the part that takes the longest to embed into agency. It can be easy to get demoralised...but please ...

When did childhood become standardised and why have we blindly followed? I am as guilty as any of teaching in the way that I thought children learned best.  I have always considered myself to be a good teacher…but my definition of a good teacher is changing, and thankfully so am I.  I don’t in fact believe we ever stop changing, but I have certainly changed direction and thankfully the destination is a hell of a lot more appealing to me. So often I hear arguments against play…how will they learn? how will we fit everything in? Oh but children love routine and play is unknown.  How will we know what they are learning, how will we assess it?  Oh but we have too much else to do. We also have a system that has set parents up to believe that academic achievement and extension is of paramount importance…these parents don’t want to see their children just playing.  Play is frivolous isn't it?  Come on, they don’t go to school to play, do your jo...

Why? Number agents came about following my discovery of Mantle of the Expert.  Through Mantle of the Expert I found a whole new way of engaging and motivating children and particularly those children that were not engaged through traditional ways of teaching inquiry. My maths teaching had become stagnant.  I felt like I was just going through the motions.  I planned well, used group specific teaching, tried to incorporate maths games and materials where possible...but felt bored.  I felt like the 'children' were missing from my teaching.  Maths teaching was something I was doing 'to' them.  I also noticed that children's oral language was really lacking.  They struggled to share understandings and lacked the words for what they wanted to say. The potential for Mantle to transform my maths teaching was not lost on me...I also saw the way children responded to programmes like Number Jacks, Dora the Explorer and Little Einsteins.  My lightbulb ...

I watched Bryan Bruce's documentary again for the second time yesterday. The one about our world class education system.  It is an accurate picture of where things were at then and are still at.  Sadly the powers at be continue to ignore intelligent arguments such as this. This one sentence sums it up for me "we are doing well despite the system." And then I saw this on Facebook The very sad reality is our education system is being modelled on this very idea...that home and school are two different worlds, that school is a place of sit down, shut up and home is where we have fun. Why oh why would anyone in any sort of power follow a system like this when our curriculum should lead us down a similar path to Finland.  In Finland there is high trust, high trust at all levels of schooling, who what a novel idea that is!  In Finland they use brain research to realise what learning should look like (play) in those first couple of years at least.  They d...

For those that know me, you will be well aware that I am a massive fan of Mantle of the Expert.  Part of this approach is a drama for learning component that I have been wanting to explore further as a separate component this year rather than part of a full blown Mantle (other than Number Agents of course.) Drama is so incredibly powerful and along with play it allows children to explore various contexts and perspectives.  You do not need to be a 'drama' teacher to use drama for learning as an approach.  Basically one idea can be explored for a short time, or expanded into a longer time.  It is all up to you.  There are loads of conventions that can be used...but not knowing these does not need to hold you back. Children fall naturally into drama and will engage at their various comfort zone.  Invite them in and watch the magic happen.  There is no pressure on children, but the strategies used are non-threatening and I find that even the most shy c...

So 2017 will be the first full year that we have embarked on a much more play-based class.  At the moment our day looks a lot like this: We begin our day with play and then phonics, or phonics and then play.  It depends how the children are on that day.  Play is self-directed completely by children and they are allowed inside or outside.  At the moment a favourite mode of play is 'teachers' but the kitchen is popular as are made up ball games outside.  Of course you can't go past a good scooter or bike ride either and writing in our blank books and creating our own art from loose parts is a favourite. Following phonics (we use a bit of a mixed approach with this) we will move back to play.  I use the children as my guide, but number agent time usually starts around 10am.  This has been a huge success so far with amazing results so far.  The math talk going on is incredible, the confidence is brimming and imaginations are firing.  N...

I have been reflecting on this concept a lot lately.  Particularly in terms of play-based learning, but also in terms of teaching in general. We expect so much of our children.  We want them to be engaged and motivated.  We want them to be forming emotional connections.  We want them to be growing and developing a growth mindset.  We want them to develop effective social relationships, to listen to each other and have empathy. We expect so much of our children, but do we expect these things of ourselves? I think we should expect these things of ourselves, of course we can't be 'perfect' all of the time (and neither can our kids.) but we can strive to be all of these things, most of the time.  Because ultimately that is our job and for most of us...our passion. That led me to thinking about conditions that allow us to do this.  I've explored the conditions that allow children to do this and believe that play-based learning and the theories and r...

I have been giving a lot of thought to this recently.  So many children and adults suffer from maths anxiety and there seems to be some quite specific reasons for this and some very easy ways we as educators can help to prevent children from developing anxiety in the first place. Firstly we need to consider how we present maths to young children.  From a very early age maths in lots of classrooms around the world becomes just about numbers.  The thing about numbers is they are black and white...there is one way to form them, sequence them and usually one right answer.  Children learn quickly and quite incorrectly through no fault of their own that to be successful at maths they must fit into a box, they must be fast and they must be right.   They learn maths in abstract situations, numbers have no authentic meaning to them.  They are often competitive and in some schools around the world they are very very aware of what 'group' they are in. ...

I have written a short  resource on visual maths strategies that can be found here. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Using-Visual-Tools-To-Develop-Number-Sense-3090936 This resource discusses how I build visual tools into my maths teaching in agency. I have been reflecting a lot lately on the way we teach maths.  It dismays me when I read about programmes touted as a one stop shop....books that children work in from five...yuck!  Resources that cost a huge amount of money and can be used in one way....eek!  Books that you follow like a transcript, that link to follow up worksheet activities ....WHY? I apologise if this offends you and obviously this blog post is my opinion only....but I just think some have lost sight of how teaching and learning works.  They have lost sight of children and become slaves to a narrow curriculum. Why oh why do we make the teaching of maths so hard?  Why do we overthink it?  Why do we think it is necess...