Number Agents

The part I love about Agency when it has been well developed is the opportunity to have extended adventures.  To take a child's love for the imaginary and for stories the next step and cast them in their own story. On Monday we received this message from Head Agent at the end of our session.  Voki is hard to infuse with emotion but the agents clicked that something had gone wrong. This morning we entered agency for an extended session.  Once in agency we received a voice message from Head Villain.  His message went along the lines of this... "It is Head Villain here.  I have your Head Agent.  He is locked up in my lair.  My Villains are wreaking havoc, the baker has too many cakes, the gardener is planting snails and the firefighters fires are doubling.  They are on their way to the others now.  You will not defeat us.  But try if you dare!" Upon receiving this message I had set some children to play the role of some clients. ...

I love this time of year in agency, by this stage of the year Agency is humming.  It is no coincidence that the name I have given to this approach includes the word agents and can be referred to as agency, because it truly involves a huge degree of student agency. By this stage of the year children believe absolutely in the world that is Number Agents.  They know the characters inside and out, I don't even need the puppet on my hand to become the character...they know them so well by voice.  The know and love the characters so much that even when we are not in agency they blame the villains for issues we may be having. By this time of year they truly love the heroes and have a love-hate relationship with the villains.  They look forward to being in agency so much that they will remind me if they think I have forgotten that day.  They also spend a lot of time inventing their own agent adventures during play-based time. By this time of year they slip so easi...

We have been thinking deeply about the teaching of maths at our school.  In the last two years in particular we have transformed the way we do things, simply by being open to change.  The work of Jo Boaler has been revolutionary for us and transformative for our learners.  We only wish we had embarked on this journey sooner. We would have said three years ago that we taught maths pretty well.  In fact the data would have backed this up, with almost 100% of our learners at their required stage each year.  However as we all know, children are not data, and regardless of the brilliant levels they were achieving, their mathematical mindsets were probably not quite where they should have been.  This is probably because ours were not either.  We streamed our classes from Year 2 up, we used timed tests, and we were pretty conscious of coverage.  The message we were sending to children about what maths is were misguided and unfortunately quite damagin...

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This post is a little different from my normal.  I thought I would write a little about what a Mantle may look like in a junior room (that is play-based.)  I get a lot of questions about Mantle of the Expert and find it hard to sum it up in one short statement, so thought it may be useful to share what I am doing this term to give you an idea.  Also a Mantle can look a little different in a junior room and often seems quite impossible, I want to spread the word that it is not impossible and that the benefits for children and how they view themselves as learners are huge. Number Agents is based on Mantle of the Expert.  The beginning of the year sees us hooking in, and building belief.  I like to step in slowly as I find that children buy in so much more when you take time with this.  We also take time to build up drama in our room so that the culture of acceptance is just right. The rest of the year with Number Agents is about our daily clients and prof...

Below are a range of photos that to me demonstrate some of the absolutely vital parts of mathematics we want to de developing to ensure children have strong foundational understandings to build on.   Through self-directed play based time and games and activities through Number Agents I am looking for children to make strong connections. Through play I can provide materials and invitations that can explicitly develop these things.  I can work alongside children coaching them with the correct language, posing wonderings and simply discussing what they notice.  It is incredibly important during this time that I feed in the mathematics language with at least three statements or things I notice before I pose some sort of question.   I love to capture this maths on camera and when we come back together for a short maths time the whole class can benefit from what one child or group has been doing.  I find this then prompts them to move off and try the activi...

Head Agent First Step in to planet protectors

I do have a little bit in my book about planning, but it has to be the most common question asked of me, how do I plan? The honest answer is less, but more...ha ha I know as clear as mud! Over the years I have become much more inclined to think big picture and then specifically add details day by day, week by week as I see where the learning actually takes us. This 'just in time' planning allows me to be responsive to need and responsive to learning urges. When it comes to Number Agents I do use the progressions but more recently (over the last two years) have become more of a fan of developing Number Sense rather than ticking off a sequence of learning through stages.  I want my agents to have a deep understanding and flexibility with number. To encourage my planning and teaching to reflect the effort to encourage and foster Number Sense I make a mindmap that is an overview of the things  I want my agency sessions to include.  Of course this is tweaked and ch...