Number Agents

I have been on this journey into play for three years now.  Each year goes from strength to strength and my 'approach' to teaching continues to improve...why, what is it that keeps it going and getting stronger?  There's no hugely mystical reason, basically I have chosen to channel each and everything I do through the eyes of the child.  Because I have never really grown up, I find this quite easy 😊.  The other thing that makes it incredibly easy is that I know my children, I spend a lot of time talking to them, play-based learning makes that possible.  No longer am I rushing from reading group to reading group, madly trying to rush them through a timetable that they have no ownership over.  Now I can sit down at a table and talk to them about their interests, pose questions and wonderings and listen to the conversation take a direction that I never expected. My current concern is that so many classrooms are governed by the eyes of an adult.  Envi...

I continue to come across thinking around school entry and learning readiness that worries me.  There is so much information out that about how the brain develops and the time that this may take, yet it seems to be largely ignored.  I am not going to go back through this research as I have posted about this before. Firstly let me get it out there again...I hate the word acceleration.  I don't believe we need this word in order to understand that some children just need extra support.  All learners should have the benefit of being known on an individual level, not just those targeted for acceleration.  As teachers I feel it is our responsibility to know each and every child for who they are as an individual and do our absolute best to support them wherever they are up to.  This may be children technically thought of as struggling, those at an 'expected' level and those children working above expected level.  In fact my view of acceleration is tha...

I feel very privileged to be in a position to readily embark fully on this play-based journey and now into our third year I am beginning to feel like I'm really starting to 'get it.' I can confidently stand behind the decisions I have made regarding our learning approach in the juniors and feel backed by research.  I know my why and feel absolutely confident within that.  But just like everyone, or school is not perfect, our children are just that, children.  We have worked incredibly hard on our culture, it has been and continues to be a journey.  I walk with pride around our school, watching the creative play with all year levels working together, I listen to the hammers creating yet another hut modification and I brim with pride when parents speak about how happy their children are....but don't be deceived it is not all roses at our place either.  Our children do  make mistakes, we as teachers make mistakes, we have bad days occasionally,  ju...

A bit of a combination post today.  I'm not sure about you, but Number Agents is the highlight of our day.  I love it, the children love it and their mathematical understandings continue to blow me away.  Plus by this time of year there is a wonderful storyline unfolding and it is so exciting! What is my why? Firstly, what is my why, I think you really need to think about this before embarking on any new approach or change to how you are teaching.  What is your why?  Why are you changing, what is your desired outcome?  Are you doing it because others are, or is this something you really want to do? My why is pretty simple, I want children to love learning.  Particularly in terms of Number Agents, I want children to love maths, to have deep number sense, to learn through a playful mode and to believe in their abilities to develop new strategies.  Ultimately my major why, and this is much broader, I would like to play my part, in not only elim...

I am frequently asked what play looks like in our senior rooms.   In our school from year 4-6 we use mantle of the expert.  (Junior rooms may or may not use it also but focus on drama for learning)  Mantle is playful and as you will read in the second excerpt below, very dynamic, often fluid and seriously amazing.  Certainly something I would have loved when I was at school. The way our school is set up, all children get access to free self-directed play in a very student centred environment.  Middle and senior rooms have been experimenting with other types of play and the first except demonstrates a first step into this.   In our school we very much see development being a 3-4 year process when introducing new ideas...1st year is around having a go, dipping toes, 2nd year is around doing more, developing programmes based on the research, 3rd year is around consolidation and 4th year is around sharing with others. In terms of our school envi...

Mathematics, the teaching of it, and the acquisition of vital knowledge and understanding for children are something I feel quite passionately about now. If you had asked me 20 years ago I probably would have told you it would be the first thing lost from our programme if we ran out of time.  Of course just a quick glance over my blog posts shows you that I have many areas of interest, including literacy development.  Over the years I have come to view learning and development as something that we do a disservice to by seeing it as 'curriculum' areas...however for the point of this post I would like to talk about mathematics as just that, an area of curriculum. There is always a lot of debate around maths, the current discussion  at the moment seems to be around 'streaming' or 'mixed ability groups.'  I find that people are more prone with maths teaching, much more than any other teaching area to stand vehemently behind their opinion, and often refuse to l...