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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

In #MathsToday. We had fun using the tangent applet from Mathspad for estimating gradients. We also looked at some graphs showing the change in daily new cases of Corona virus in 2020/21 and discussed when a chord would be more useful than a tangent. www.mathspad.co.uk/interactives...

mathspad.co.uk

Drawing Tangents Tool

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In #MathsToday I used Lil' Chris' song "Checking it out" to guide us through integration by inspection/standard patterns. For those less familiar with the song the lyrics are 'Ch-ch-checking it out, t-t-taking my chances, ch-ch-checking it out, chasing the answers" 😆

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In #MathsToday we had the algebra tiles out to explore completing the square. One pupil was looking rather confused, after a discussion it became clear his problem was with the name "completing the square" he thinks it should be renamed "how close to a square". Changed his title then he carried on!

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

In #MathsToday we were converting metric units of area and volume. One pupil asked how many cm^3 were in a km^3 so we had fun puzzling this out together. I've asked them to explain to me tomorrow how many mm^3 are in a km^3

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

In #mathstoday had a lovely time solving quadratics by factorising. One pupil described it as very satisfying. Thanks to @andylutwyche.bsky.social for his solving quadratic spiders, which built up nicely in difficulty 👏 www.tes.com/teaching-res...

tes.com

Solving Quadratics Spiders | Teaching Resources

There are six “spiders” each with four increasingly challenging quadratics to solve, including completing the square and using the quadratic formula. Different blank

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

In #mathstoday I used this task, heavily inspired by a task by @nathanday.bsky.social (thanks!) to introduce Pascal's triangle. It was a great task for my 1st lesson with y12 as they shared and developed their approaches with each other, hopefully setting the tone for them to discuss their thoughts.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Some lovely tasks here, thanks for sharing 👍

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

It's hard to rewire pupils to think about a concept rather than reach for a shortcut. I've used this layer approach for cuboids, prisms and cylinders to embed it but I think next time I'll spend more time with images of prisms and get pupils to make it out of cubes in layers to get the point across

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Really enjoying the "convince me" questions from the Probing Questions part of mrbartonmaths.com . Used these lovely 3 with year 7 in #mathstoday which opened up a great discussion linking together pupils understanding of decimals and fractions and their connection to division.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

This term I've been trialling using sentence stems-classes saying key ideas out loud. In #MatysToday I tried it with year 11 higher tier revision. We all felt a bit silly at first but it genuinely helped them to consolidate their understanding and improved the quality of their explanations.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Lovely set of quadratic sequences from @taylorda01.bsky.social used in #MathsToday. We particularly liked exploring the different ways to approach sequences (f) and (g). My year 10s also wanted to explore cubic sequences and quartics! I love their enthusiasm. taylorda01.weebly.com/uploads/4/2/...

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

I was so proud of one of my year 13's in #Mathstoday. He said he just didn't get what independent events meant. He said he knew he should have learnt it ages ago but had been too embarrassed to ask before today. I praised him for identifying a gap in his knowledge and doing something about it.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

In #mathstoday we had just learnt how to find the area of a segment so finished with these problems. I really liked how on one table of 4 pupils they had 3 different methods for the bottom left problem. How would you break it up?

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

I certainly like your idea of including 8 as a cube. I wont be adding zero to this part of my lesson though unless pupils bring it up because it doesn't link to the physical square like the rest do, however we do discuss zero later in the lesson. Thanks for the feedback.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Found my year 7 class discussing Numberblocks in #MathsToday to help them with square numbers. Such a brilliant TV show that clearly has an impact on children's understanding of number. #iteachmaths

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

That is a very valid point! I took the image from the internet somewhere years ago and never questioned it before 🤦‍♀️. Will have to adapt the question slightly. Thanks for pointing it out 👍

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

There's definitely a lot of bugs around. My husband is a primary teacher trying to organise the school nativity for next week with a third of the children absent this week. Currently there's no Mary or Joseph, only a donkey!

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Thank you! I will show them this next lesson. But I'm pleased I let them figure it out for themselves first.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Really proud of my year 8's in #MathsToday. They loved these questions working out the weight of each apple. But I was particularly impressed with them explaining their reasoning, something I've been trying so hard to develop in them this year.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Great question in #FurtherMaths while studying matrices for stretches today. If the determinant of the matrix is the area scale factor, what happens when the determinant is zero? I told the class to trial it and find out. Lovely bit of investigative work testing out their ideas. #MathsToday

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I have purposely tried not to make a big deal about negatives, as I think in the past my own worry has passed onto the pupils. We would talk that one through as "we have 3 lots of 5b and 3 lots of -6, so we have 15b and -18, which is 15b - 18". I'm yet to tackle a negative in front of the brackets 😬

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

In #MathsToday I used stem sentences to support teaching of expanding brackets. I was pleasantly surprised to hear pupils respond to questions using the structure of the stem sentence without me prompting them to do so. Would love to hear others' experiences of stem sentences in secondary maths.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Not exactly, but I was teaching this during a lesson about proving statements using algebra and using counter examples was a nice addition to this. After these non-maths statements we disproved some maths ones.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

While learning proof with year 10 in #MathsToday, I found out which of my pupils I can discuss Eurovision with later in the year thanks to these statements we disproved with counterexamples. #eurovision

All months contain the letter R
No one in year 10 has ever seen Eurovision
All birds can fly
Every Disney film contains a princess

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Lovely impromptu moment in #MathsToday (yesterday), Head of upper school who is also a science teacher walked into my rearranging formulas lesson and said "oh I can do that! Here, try this one I've been using today" Great for pupils to see how different subjects link together. #iteachmaths

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Thank you 🙏. I feel a trip to my local B&M is necessary this weekend. Only challenge will be only buying the advent calendar. Whenever I go in there I always walk out with the most random selection of things.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

In #MathsToday pupils vote which of these were equivalent to the original expression. 1 vote Mario, 15 votes Luigi, 1 vote Bowser and 20 votes Peaches. One pupil explained she voted for Peaches because she just knew you multiply. So we then looked at it expanded and why multiplying works.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Probably the first one because some pairs had considered decimal values for the base, others considered negatives, this then lead into a discussion on where the cut off point was, so considering 1 for the base.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Lovely #oracy work on indices in #MathsToday. We haven't covered negative indices yet but this got them pondering negative indices and considering non integer values for a and b as well as 0 and 1. Looking forward to delving deeper next lesson.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

While simplifying fractions in #MathsToday, a pupil asked me why the divisibility by 3 trick works. I felt daft I'd never queried it before! We had a lovely time using algebra to prove it works for 2 digit numbers then 3 digits numbers. Love it when a lesson goes off piste like that.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

In #MathsToday I used this activity to gauge and challenge my pupils' understanding of parallel lines. Two were convinced b are parallel because they look like train tracks. Really made me think about the language we use when defining these things.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

I do something similar. I say "The 1 with a tan is sexy' and "The 1 in a cot is cosy" and accompany these with a cute photo of my son as a baby in his cot and this classically tanned sexy man 😂

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

2. When having class discussions, include the phrases “How can we say it better?” or “How can we say it like a Mathematician?” 3. Hand out the Talk Tactics sheets from Voice21 and direct them to the type of communicator you want them to be. 4. Have Discussion Guidelines to promote good listening.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

So, what can we do to get all pupils engaging in effective discussions? 1. Make it explicit that pupils should be discussing what they notice, comparing their methods, making predictions, etc. You can do this by popping some sentence starters on the board.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

In #MathsToday I have been looking at where my department are in terms of developing oracy skills. I found that many activities lend themselves to discussion work naturally but that not all pupils engage in these discussions and not all pupils demonstrate authentic listening skills. #oracy #voice21

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Lower prior attainment is probably a fairer phrase and one used in my school but I fell into old habits with that post, not to mention I wouldn't have had enough characters to write it!

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

It probably is yes. But now you've made me question whether I should describe them differently. Can you suggest an alternative for those pupils who find maths difficult?

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

I had a tough lesson with low ability y8 on Tuesday unsuccessfully trying to find circumference of a circle but tried again in #MathsToday and thankfully the relentless work done on what is radius and what is diameter paid off. Made this sheet inspired by @draustinmaths.com fill in the blank sheets.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

I've resorted to editing my lessons to make sure no 6 is followed by a 7 because of this but I keep missing odd ones. It's infuriating! Bring on the next ridiculous meme/slang trend 🥴

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

In #MathsToday my year 11s were writing error intervals. They asked if the inequalities were always the same (...<=...<...), I originally said yes but then one pupil mentioned negatives! Brilliant discussion about whether an error interval for x rounded to -4 to the nearest integer is -4.5<x<=-3.5

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

The first task helped to drill home the key features of each part, in particular it's location within the circle and this then helped with the second half of the lesson where they needed to justify their decision using correct vocabulary.

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

In #mathstoday I had my year 8s sit back to back, then one partner had to describe the circle diagram and the other had to draw it from the description. We then formally introduced each of the parts of a circle and used our correct vocabulary for the white rose task. #oracy #voice21

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Thanks @missradders.bsky.social for reminding me about the Durham Maths mysteries. I used the straight line graphs one to get my year 10s warmed up and using their oracy skills yesterday.

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Reposted by Mrs P ♥️ maths

Nathan Day @nathanday.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Calling all Maths teachers! What are some of your all-time great tasks for secondary Maths? Ones that could have their place in any curriculum, one that should be studied in PGCE courses, ones that started whole new genres of tasks... ... or just ones you really like. (see some of mine below)

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

However if explaining to pupils I would refer to yellows as positives and reds as negatives

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Mrs P ♥️ maths @mrs-p-maths.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

But it went want to do 1 - - 4 we don't have any reds to literally take away so we need to rewrite 1 as 1 with 4 zero pairs. Now we can remove the 4 reds and are left with 1+4 yellows, therefore 5. Hope that makes sense.

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