Number Agents

 This blog post follows on from my one of yesterday about literacy. Understanding the Science of Learning and understanding neurodiversity remain as important for maths and all other areas of the curriculum as they are for literacy.  In reality it is teacher knowledge and the way they can breathe this knowledge and 'flair' that make the difference.   While a 'programme' or 'approach' can help guide practice, teacher knowledge remains paramount, so just because it is so important I will reiterate, it is not time that matters, but the quality with which this teaching is done.  In order to make this a reality, rather than just mandating a length of time we need to spend on maths and literacy, significant time, PLD and resourcing needs to come forth from our government, I await this with baited breath.   Not only this, significant support needs to be provided to teachers in classrooms to be able to enable them to assist ALL learners, the classrooms of toda...

 You'd have to be living under a rock to have not heard about the 'new' requirement of the current government to ensure literacy and maths are taught for an hour a day each.   I don't know if you are anything like me, but when this policy was announced, it conjured up images of children sitting 'doing' literacy for exactly an hour.  I know that this is not the intention of the policy, but it certainly is how some seem to be interpreting it.  Let's get it straight, you would be hard pressed to find a classroom not doing an hour of literacy a day, but what we don't want is people focused on the length of time, instead we want them focused on quality teaching. The policy itself feels like a 'soundbite' something to please voters, I guess we will have to wait and see what substance of understanding and resourcing comes with this policy, but while we are waiting, let me share how my 'hour' of literacy and 'hour' of maths might look on ...

Yesterday, while I was strolling around the park with my dogs, podcast in my pocket as usual, I listened to the words of Carl Hendrick and his words really resonated with me.  They were not new to me, it is a message I have heard many times before, but for some reason this time they really resonated loudly with me.  Loudly enough that I just had to share my personal journey with the ideas of 'engagement' and 'motivation.'  For clarity I have posted the part of the transcript that contains the main part of the conversation I am referring to for reference at the end of this blog post, but you can also find the podcast here. https://chalkandtalkpodcast.podbean.com/e/ep-22-mindsets-and-misconceptions-with-carl-hendrick/ So, motivation, it is such a widely used term. We speak about children being motivated learners and it being crucial that we employs strategies that will motivate students, hook them in to the learning.  Teachers are also heard to say, that a child just w...

 Last year I posted about dipping my toes into whole class teaching for literacy.  What provoked this move was a huge amount of frustration, in fact it is a frustration I still hear often from many teachers, particularly those in the junior - middle school.   I was feeling 'spread to thin' for want of a better word, with too many groups, trying so hard to meet a diverse range of needs by doing what I had always done... reading groups.   Even though I was well into my Science of Reading journey, I had still clung to my reading groups.  It is how I was taught to teach reading, it is how I had always managed it and I didn't know of any other approach. By the end of 2022 I knew I just couldn't spend another year like this, rushing from group to group, not giving enough time and feeling frazzled by the end of the day.  I have shared a lot more here if you want to read it  https://numberagents.blogspot.com/2023/04/whole-class-reading-my-experience-...