Number Agents

New Message Here Number Agents is a concept born from Mantle of the Expert.  Unlike a normal Mantle, Number Agents stretches out for a whole year.  Other than this it does follow the traditional steps of a Mantle. 1) Hook - this year we did this with a message in the bottle (there is a post on this on this blog if you would like to know more) 2)Building Belief - spending time setting up our company...this is where Head Agent starts to come in. 3) Clients and Commission - Number Agents happens to have a new client each day and  the commission is our daily problems. 4) Professional Tasks - this is where you math teaching comes in :) 5) Tensions...added by the villains each day. 6) Closure...at the end of the year it is important that Number Agents officially closes so that we can open a new agency the following year. My book spells out more of the ins and outs of Number Agents and can be found here.   I do sell hard copies but only have a few left, so...

This is something I have been giving a whole lot of thought to lately and I certainly do not claim to have an answer, but I do have ideas that may prompt further thought. Like most schools we track our 'target learners'...those children that may not be achieving as expected in reading, writing and maths.  As I am sure most schools find, many children appear on the lists in more than one area.  As a small school (200) we are lucky enough to know every child deeply, to be able to make plans that work for them and usually help them to get to where they need to be. Like most principals I spend a lot of time looking at the children on these lists and trying to find common links.  Over time I have found one great big looming common link...a lack in confidence, and anxiety towards learning or towards being wrong or taking risks, a very real fear of failure. More info on anxiety can be found here Now this is not rocket science, but it is alarming to me that such an issue ...

We had such a great session today I just had to share. We started off with our normal rhythm into agency, singing our count to 100 song.   We practiced our doubles and then used this song.  Our focus at the moment is counting on. After this we played finger fun...once again practicing counting on from the biggest number.  Basically we jump for an amount nominated by agent 81...raise that many fingers, then jump again for another nominated amount, we then group our fingers and add them up. Today our villain was Sum Snake.  He is a bit trickier because he doesn't really have a client to provide us with a problem. So I decided to have some fun and go into role.  We are lucky enough to have a small office located just behind our mat area.  When the alarm sounded I said "who can hear that sound"  and proceeded to make the hissing sound of Sum Snake.  I then said "I think it is coming from back there"  I  walked into the offi...

Right, after a number of posts not related to Number Agents (or at least directly) I thought I better catch up and let you know what we are up to at the moment. First things first...I have seen a lot of information out there again about maths anxiety.  Number Agents was born out of my interest in play and drama and further refined after maths PLD, but it was also born out of need to give children a positive mindset to mathematics.  It has certainly proven to be an effective approach in terms if that.  For those that are not sure what math anxiety is, this short video is a good one to watch. So what are the agents up to at the moment and what am I noticing? Our last few weeks have focused on subitizing and the use of doubles and halves to help us.  We have also been learning to count on from the biggest number. This subitizing song is great. Subitizing is something we work on in lots of different ways and it is so valuable.  We have been using d...

School readiness is a hot topic at the moment.  In can be a hard one to lock down actually.  Many children start school quite 'compliant' they are willing to have a go, willing to try....but often they are a mystery because the don't seem to make the same progress as their peers.  Some are obvious they come into school operating at a 3-4 year level...as professionals why would we expect these children to suddenly be able to read and write? In a play-based environment it is now really easy to pick up social needs...it can be a little more difficult to pin down what exactly is going on in terms of learning readiness. I am really not liking calling it learning ready, because from day dot they are learning...I guess in this case I am referring to the academic readiness we have all become so preoccupied with, in a system that feels like a pressure cooker.  In fact in my opinion a traditional new entrant classroom is often slowing down and narrowing learning...but that i...

It is a question I have been asked frequently in my career, what does my child need in order for them to be ready for school? Over the years my answer has changed, take me back only a few years ago my answer would probably have centred around counting, letters, writing their name etc, along with the usual looking after belongings, tying shoes, social skills and manners. Over the past few years I myself have been on quite the journey...I have challenged my own assumptions about what makes a 'good' learner and in turn have changed my answer to this question. I now believe it is not the children that need to be 'school ready' but it is the school that needs to be 'children ready.'  This can be done by embracing play-based learning and discarding any programmes that are solely based on children getting to a certain standard.  The reality is there is nothing standard about our children, therefore there should be nothing standard about the education we give them...

After yesterdays thoughts about writing I have been giving some really deep thought to what might be the essential building blocks to enabling children to grow into effective writers and how running a play based classroom really helps to put these in place.  This is the very basic diagram I have created that demonstrates what I am thinking at the moment. There are so many components that come into enabling children to be writing ready, and this diagram is very simple but basically it includes what I believe to be the key parts of the puzzle. So what comes first... to me initially it needs to be those gross motor skills, along with the ability to perform activities that cross the midline.  Often children will come to school with this part of the puzzle already well in place...but I am sure we all have had experiences with those children that have not got these things in place.  Play-based learning is incredibly useful here because children can be given many oppo...

A Hunch Forms - Early Phonemic Awareness and how it can be missed without us even knowing... "This blog post is taken from my professional blog" This week we have had some interesting discussions around the staff room table.  We have a small group of year 5 students, girls and boys (about 6 children) that just seem to have some major building blocks missing in terms of phonemic awareness.  They have gotten to a particular point with their writing and seem to have stalled. These children have been part of good phonetic programmes throughout their time at school, but they just don't seem to have made solid connections. In a stroke of genius our lovely Shelley decided to take them right back to initial letter sounds, rather than presuming they had them, she wanted to find out if they did. Low and behold these children all had major gaps in their very basic letter/sound knowledge.  They all found this, something we would expect our Year 2 children to have na...

I like to keep my planning quite open and be guided day to day by what the agents find difficult or too easy the day before.  However in saying this an agency session does have a daily rhythm that looks like this: Monday Hot Spots/Daily Basics/Maths Eyes Quick subsitizing song Doubles doubles song My dog fraction Song/Game Make a tower to ten game - groups of three Professional Development Activity Professor - Using dominoes to make number stories - professor to model using the giant domino to make up the number story.  Focus in on the use of the pattern and begin to talk about starting from the biggest number.  Begin to focus on counting on for those that are ready. - Work in groups of three Client Teacher in role... Painter - help something is helping with my paint, half of the paint keeps disappearing from each can. Villain Captain Fraction Word Problem Arrrrr….the painter had 8 cans of paint and I have taken half...

Along with winning over management, winning over parents seems to be amongst the top of concerns when embarking on a play-based learning journey. It is certainly one of the main topics when I am talking to other principals and staff at other schools.  Many schools are coming up with new and innovative terms for the word play in an attempt to bring parents on side...while this is completely up to individual schools, I don't think there is any need to call play by any other name. From my perspective parents come at this issue with really only one concern in mind...if they are playing all day, how and what are they learning? If we as educators can take parents along for the ride with us and make the learning as visible as possible, I think we can appease these concerns. I'm not a very linear person, my thoughts are often all over the place, and if you have ever had a discussion for me about anything that I am passionate about, you will know my mind is inclined to jump from...