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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Used this lovely task from Underground Maths with year 12 today. I love that it has no calculating, it’s all reasoning. 🥰🙌 undergroundmathematics.org/calculus-mee... #MathsToday #ALevelMaths

Screen grab from https://undergroundmathematics.org/calculus-meets-functions/slippery-slopes

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Made this for year 12 to practice discernment with differentiation. Took far longer to plan and write than it did for them to do it, but hopefully it helps consolidate and make meaning between sentences and expressions/equations! #MathsToday #ALevelMaths

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

My year 13s are struggling with reverse chain rule, so wrote these as a bridging task before we look at adjusting to get a reverse chain rule result. #MathsToday #ALevelMaths

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Used this from Underground Maths today. (undergroundmathematics.org/introducing-...) Prompted great conceptual discussion around zooming in and looking at local properties on curves. It made differentiation from first principles so much easier to grasp afterwards too. Love UM! #MathsToday

Screen grab of task from https://undergroundmathematics.org/introducing-calculus/a-tangent-is

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Wrote these for my yr12 pures over the weekend off the back of an assessment. They were struggling with making decisions about how to use information, so made everything revolve around two points. Also threw in some ‘find k’ vs ‘find in terms of k’. #MathsToday

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Happy Halloween! *elbows in some self-promotion* Got a story out in a book. It’s good.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

I did also see this meme one too many times and thought… ayup hang on. Fair.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Bog People is OUT! Hardback, ebook and audio versions are available from all over! It’s got ten great stories in it that take folk horror as their inspiration and weaves new paths through the woods! It’s got gross bits, funny bits, sad bits! It’s got a copper foil embossed spine!

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

#MathsToday Introduced the idea of a domain with a few examples and then used this. It worked well! I felt it helped them get a ‘feel’ for things rather than getting stuck in computation. I want to build in some generalisation next lesson to have any square with a vertex on the origin. 1/2

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

#MathsToday Equations with 9s & we looked at how ‘easier’ strategies aren’t always so! The first way of solving on the right hand example threw them for a loop. “We’re doing equations not fractions though.” (!) Such an interesting thing to say, and I wonder how much they thing everything’s distinct.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

We’re yr9 entry with pupils from all over and today in one of my classes while others practised single brackets I tried to convince a small group of them to think a bit more laterally rather than expanding and combining terms to push their thinking. Ended up here with them! #MathsToday

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

This is wild to me. Lunch duty on a full teaching day? When are you peeing? Or talking to another grown up? I’d lose my mind before October half term.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Used Gradient Match from Underground Maths (undergroundmathematics.org/introducing-...) today in the way advocated in @susanwhitehouse.bsky.social and @mrsouthernmaths.bsky.social’s incredible book - worked so well, love it! ❤️ #MathsToday

Photo of Teaching A Level Maths: Content and Pedagogy by Rob Southern and Susan Whitehouse.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

After school further maths getting stuck into some trig equation solving. Planned a really precise approach for yr12 (manipulatives, laminated write-on graphs, small steps that move v quickly) and it’s worked really well for year 10 L2FM too! #MathsToday

Photo of a whiteboard showing solving simple trig equations via graphs. First section is only number of solutions, second is values.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Here’s how the publisher is advertising it (rather than me obviously. 6/6

Screen grab from the pre-order page 1/3: “Unleash the dark and delirious with this electrifying anthology of folk horror from some of Britain's most iconic working-class voices: A.K. Blakemore, Daniel Draper, Emma Glass, Mark Colbourne, Mark Stafford, Hollie Starling, Jenn Ashworth, Natasha Carthew, Salena Godden and Tom Benn.”

Screen grab from the pre-order page 2/3: “A phonograph cylinder that plays on a loop for eternity, casting out ghostly spectres of violence; a centuries-old stew made of dismembered body parts; a bigoted woman working at an ossuary, the bones she watches over her only remaining friends; three siblings who set out to scatter their fathers’ ashes, a man none of them could stand; and a hag stone sat in the pocket of a witch.”

Screen grab from the pre-order page 3/3: “Uncanny and unsettling, wild and wyrd, the ten stories in this collection showcase the best of folk horror. Set in and around England, they celebrate working-class culture and history, and, sharp as a guillotine blade, reveal the real monsters that stalk our green and pleasant land.”

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Happy Beltane, happy May Day, happy COVER REVEAL DAY! Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror, edited by Hollie Starling - coming October 2025. 1/6

Cover for Bog People. The cover shows a person with a four-prong gardening fork wearing rustic formal clothes. Their head is a goat skull.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Cover reveal tomorrow! 🙌 (I’m being absolutely normal about being on this list of contributors and definitely not shitting bricks.)

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

Breaking up for school holidays in banging weather just hits different. Out for a loop round Carsington Water this afternoon with a colleague - to chat uninterrupted! 🙌🥰

View of Carsington Water in the sun with a cloudless sky.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Northern Gravy - an online literary journal - have teamed up with Valley Press - an independent publishing house based in North Yorks - to release a set of anthologies featuring work from their first few years. Available to order now! northerngravy.com/product/fict... 1/2

A picture of a gravy boat on a sea of book pages, and the following text:

THE NORTHERN GRAVY FICTION ANTHOLOGY – EDITED BY NICK JONES

£10.00

“The Fiction in this collection crackles with emotional charge. There are moments in here that will snatch your breath, make you laugh, make your heart ache or your tears fall. Work that will keep you up at night, both afraid and deep in thought. It will stay with you, long after you finish it, begging to be read again and again.” – Nick Jones

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Yr11: “Why don’t I get marks for ‘angles in a circle’ or ‘angles on a straight line’ though?”

A photo of a circle with literal angles drawn in it and a straight line with two half turns worth of angles on it.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

#MathsToday Doing some ratio bits with yr9 this morning and asked a few of them to see if ‘it just flips’ every time. The algebra was really simple, but led to some nice discussion on generalisation and what conditions we’d need etc.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

This is it! For years I’ve used Instagram to do monthly round ups and it’s kept me on track to finish books by the end of the month by (like below), but like you say, that social aspect of it is different!

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

#MathsToday Yr9 P5 finishing off with some lovely reasoning with Venns

A picture from a textbook showing two Venn diagram questions for pupils to fill with appropriate ratios. In the first one the two categories are ‘simplifies to 3:2’ and ‘has integer parts’, and the second has three categories: ‘one part of the ratio is 7’; ‘equivalent to 1:2’; and ‘has integer parts’.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

Just finished Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova. Two observations. 1 - A visceral, achingly beautiful book that captures so many facets of love, violence, acceptance and grief. Cannot recommend this book enough. 2 - Dead Ink Press consistently releases absolute bangers. What a publisher.

Cover of the book Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 26/09/2024

#MathsToday Got stuck into some product of primes reasoning this morning.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

#MathsToday Some algebraic fractions with after school L2FM club 🥰 These from Don Steward are lush!

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

#MathsToday #ButYesterdayBecauseIForgot Used this with my 10s post-surds for some reasoning. Love how every time I use this it really hones in on place value as the challenge rather than anything to do with calculation.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 17/09/2024

#MathsToday Decimal multiplication with year 9. Teaching this right after estimation made it so much easier for them to get a feel for sensible numbers. Then a couple of my pupils with low prior attainment got stuck into having a play with this question before explaining their thinking brilliantly!

Photo of a whiteboard with the question ‘How many decimal places does 0.72 to the power of ten have?’ And reasoning shown for 0.72 squared, then cubed, and then how each time we multiply by 0.72 there’ll be two more decimal places.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 12/09/2024

#MathsToday Used this amazing @draustinmaths.bsky.social prime factor puzzle with my foundation yr11s this afternoon. Provoked lovely discussions about properties of number!

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 10/08/2024

Nice reasoning prompt here: Is this person’s time per lesson faster or slower than the average learner on Duolingo?

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 12/11/2023

Things that occurred to me when I saw this: 1) That’s not a self-driving car with AI, it’s 21st century fae. 2) I would love a Knight Rider reboot but with a witch.

Picture of a car in a ring of salt with text saying ‘Fun Fact: self-driving cars can be trapped using a ring of salt. If laid out correctly, the car’s visual processing AI will interpret the ring as no entry markings on the roadway and just sit there like an idiot LMAO.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

At a launch tonight for an anthology I’m in. Would love to just BE PLEASED about it, but no. Brain’s decided to spend all week feeling like a fraud and a laughing stock. Nobody asked me to submit it. I chose to send it in. And now I’m like ‘Oh no! I got what I wanted!’ 🤦‍♂️

Side-by-side picture of a man putting on clown make-up on the left and being fully painted with a big ol’ clown wig on the right because I am, in fact, a clown.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 01/10/2023

Settling in for a classic retelling of Greek mythological beings.

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Dan Draper @dandraper.bsky.social · 22/09/2023

Not all men think about Ancient Rome. Some of us have the RHOBH Amsterdam fight in our heads on loop instead.

Kim Richards telling Eileen Davidson “I’ve had enough of you, you beast.”

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