iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Huge relief to have the all-clear from the EPQ external moderator. First cohort of EPQ students successfully completed! 🙌

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Already signed up and very much looking forward to it!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Amazing - I've found some UG courses in classical mechanics which may be helpful. Thanks so much!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I think I actually said this when I was teaching connected particles involving weights in a lift 🥲

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

One of the things I want to improve with as an #ALevelMaths teacher is my knowledge of #physics in order to teach mechanics without just saying "it's magic, right?!" Any recommendations of introductory books/texts for this?

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

And our head of department has bought us a copy of Mathematical Team Challenges by Vivien Lucas. I've liked the one focusing on prime factorisation which results in a bunch of anagrams! www.waterstones.com/book/mathema...

waterstones.com

Mathematical Team Games by Vivien Lucas | Waterstones

Buy Mathematical Team Games by Vivien Lucas from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

"Einstein's Riddle" from TED is an excellent logic problem which routinely keeps my KS3 students occupied for a good half an hour. Play the video on YouTube, print out the list of the clues and then let them crack on: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rDV...

youtube.com

Can you solve "Einstein’s Riddle"? - Dan Van der Vieren

YouTube video by TED-Ed

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Another AMSP activity I'm using is the "Broken Calculator" activity from their Year 10 Maths Feast. My Lower Sixth students enjoyed it yesterday, but I think it should be accessible for all year groups. Find it here as round 3 of the 2025 event: amsp.org.uk/resource/7b3...

amsp.org.uk

Resource - AMSP

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

A starter activity that I'm going to try is a digital version of Set. I first encountered this card game at an @meimaths.bsky.social AMSP A Level Teaching summer school a few years. I've had to put the rules up on the whiteboard, but should hopefully work throughout the day...

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Second to last day of school and I am now onto "fun" lessons for my students. If you need a few suggestions to keep you going, then here is what I've gone with! #UKMathsChat

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Third cycle of A Level teaching and I *think* I'm getting the hang of the marking process. I think. Maybe?

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

An amazing city! We went there for our honeymoon.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Or just crochet your own, of course!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

An honourable mention for Vinted: search for ties, sorted lowest to highest price. Make a bundle from one seller if you can to offset shipping costs!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Top tip for any trainee teachers out there on #edusky: don't pay full price for new ties! Pop into your local charity shop/thrift store and find some unique bargains instead. These were a quid each in our local hospice shop!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

In #MathsToday (or more accurately, yesterday evening) I've been trying to re-think how to introduce logarithms to my A Level group. Turns out there's a resource that does it through double-number lines! classroom.amplify.com/activity/681...

classroom.amplify.com

A level pedagogy logarithms - from Alex

A representational approach to developing a conceptual understanding of logarithms using a double number line

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

I haven't been engaging with much maths over the break, but I have just finished reading 'Math in Drag' by Kyne Santos. An excellent read which connects queer identity and the joy of maths! Here is a thought provoking quote from the end of the book, which I finished today #MathsToday

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

I have neglected this account AGAIN but that's because summer was for sipping cocktails, being ill/injured, and occasionally spending time with lovely people. Anyway, wishing you all the best for next week if you're returning to teaching in the UK. We've got this!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

It's been a while! Exam season has really worn me down this year. Definitely not helped by one of my groups under-performing in their exams. I've worked hard with them and I'm not sure that has been reciprocated.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Yes, love a sneaky answer check!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Thanks so much - I'll take a closer look!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

I feel like this is probably a good place to ask: I'd like to get more into cryptic crosswords. Any advice of where to begin (beyond the excellent minute cryptic)?

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

On another note, a real shame that this will be the last year of the competition. Same excellent questions and a relaxed environment for getting pupils into meaty, problem-solving oriented maths

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

In #mathstoday we took 2 teams to our local AMSP Maths Feast competition at @lancasteruni.bsky.social - our kids had a great time and came 5th overall. Not bad for a team from 2nd set!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Year 11 reports written! We are truly in "digging deep to just keep going until the end of term" season!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Haven't posted much because this term has truly been insane. After having just completed year 11 mocks, I'm really thrilled to see 2 of my students getting grade 9s, and another cluster getting 8s. They've been working super hard, and it's excellent to see it start paying off!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

#ukmathschat - looks like the Girls' Grammar school down the road from me is hiring a full time maths teacher. ECTs welcome! teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/jobs/teacher...

teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk

Teacher of Maths - Lancaster Girls' Grammar School

Teacher of Maths job from Lancaster Girls' Grammar School. Apply by 24 Mar 2025.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Churning through some year 7 maths papers today (I know how to have the most exciting half term imaginable!) and it's fascinating seeing which misconceptions crop up. For instance: 60 / 0.3 = 60 × 3. Totally understandable to see where it comes from, but something to actively "unteach"! #mathstoday

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Half term is very important! What a treat it is to take a rest.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

In #MathsToday I survived running through the A level mock papers our upper sixth formers sat at the start of term. I find post-exam feedback lessons a real pain - I just hope the pupils find them a good use of time...

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Hello lovely #ALevelMaths people, does anyone have any recommended resources for teaching forces and motion in the lower sixth? I have some ideas of how to approach this topic, but any other ideas would be fabulous.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Applied to be an examiner for Edexcel GCSE maths on Monday. Received an appointment letter on Tuesday. ...there may be a shortage of examiners

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Feeling very grateful to have an Inset Day tomorrow to get fully ready for the first day of term proper on Tuesday. Sending positivity, strength, and good brain days to everyone starting again this week!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

I AM SORRY - 8 pages on the mark scheme for one 12 mark question?!?! Deeply regretting not printing this out and trying to read it from my phone!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Marking differentiation tests as part of #ALevelMaths and I'm quite surprised at how lenient the Edexcel mark schemes are for notation slips and theoretical errors for proof from first principles. One student followed half the process correctly, tried to divide by 0 and still earned 3 of 5 marks!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Just about to switch off my brain with some meditation via headspace. Sorely needed in a busy week. Teachers in the UK can get access to it for free!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

In year 8 #MathsToday we encountered curves after looking at straight lines for a few weeks. It was a lot of fun whipping out Desmos and displaying equations of graphs that they came up with! Interestingly, someone from both classes wanted to see y=x^x, and one class stumbled upon a circle!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

It was cute to hear one of my #ALevelMaths students say, "I like maths when I know what's going on." ...I certainly didn't think that when I was planning this lesson on points of inflection! #MathsToday

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

In #mathstoday I used this VERY juicy frequency trees question with my high ability year 10s: a cocktail of dividing in a given ratio, calculating percent of and percentage increase.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Backing this up with a desmos visualisation with a draggable tangent to the curve really helped clarify this point, especially when you get to the confusing bit where functions can be increasing, but have negative 2nd derivatives! (E.g. f(x) = x^0.5)

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

One nice thing about reaching 2nd year of teaching #ALevelMaths is that you can redo parts of the 1st year course with the experience you've gained. For example, when talking about increasing/decreasing functions, I now discuss the gradient of the tangent to the point, instead of dy/dx.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Here's an interesting observation from one of my year 10s: the surface area of a sphere with radius r matches the surface area of 3/4 of a sphere with radius r (kind of like a pac-man shape thing). My brain, literally on the floor.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

A perennial headache in our department appears to be introducing straight line graphs to our year 8s (12/13 YOs). I think making an explicit connection between linear sequences and their representation as graphs helped as a starting point. Plotting is fine, but interpreting graphs is the issue!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

A rugby tackle gone wonky. It happened about 5 minutes before the end of the match which means I had to do basically the full game and then rush to hospital without getting my post-match food. A travesty!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

...let's see how writing examples and marking goes this week with my fractured/dislocated finger! On my dominant hand! I guess it's a chance to learn something new.

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

No students on AS but we have changed the SOW so all the probability is now all in one block during the first year. It will hopefully make things a touch easier!

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

It is absolutely WILD that Edexcel makes the absolutely baffling step to cover probability in Venn diagrams during the first year of #ALevelMaths without set notation... after the kids have already seen this at GCSE??? And then reintroduces the set notation in the second year???

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Mr Brassington @mathsenby.bsky.social · 23/10/2024

That's fabulous, thanks so much!

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