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ProfSmudge

@profsmudge.bsky.social
424 followers 206 following 1.1K posts

School maths should be more than tables and algorithms. I try to write materials that show that. Dietmar Küchemann

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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Four eyes... [why are modern glasses so b-b big?]
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
@royal-mail.bsky.social What is the point of this from Royal Mail if the parcel doesn't actually arrive?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Image of a Grammar School classroom, courtesy of the New Statesman. I wouldn't want one of those things to land on my head....
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Fraction as measurement.... [Is it 32ths or 32nds?]
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I don't understand the price reduction. Mensa is clearly not for me.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
What were these strange arcs at 6:15 this morning?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Incremental or generic thinking?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
An interesting example of responses to a set of fraction comparison tasks using eye-tracking. What implications might it have for helping students to develop fraction sense? [Schwarzmeier et al, 2024]
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Introducing The Plough If you've not had enough About issues and stuff.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I liked this at the RA Summer Exhibition
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
The moral panic about prisoner release is absurd. If one assumes that prisoners were given the length of sentence that they and society deserve, then it doesn't make sense to reduce the sentence for some but not others.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Labour logic
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Here's an interesting task! [based on Opfer & DeVries, 2008]
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I pride myself on my bread-slicing skills, except I so often create an overhang.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Another variant.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Look at the pattern. Intriguing or obvious?!
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
What sort of answers might one get here?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
At today's lunch a friend and I were sharing a bill of £120 + 10%. The waiter suggested two payments of £60 + 5%.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Annoying ad campaign from Amazon
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
In #MathsToday (Y5) tried to use the standard algorithm to subtract 11:05 hours from 15:00 hours. [We'd already solved it informally.] What happens when we have to 'borrow' 1 from the hours column? Does this give us 10 lots of 10-minutes or 6?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Gulp! What jolly pastime is this?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Alan Shearer, please shut up
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Had another look last night at this stimulating book from 1997. "Students build mathematical understandings by reflecting and communicating" about challenging problems. Isn't it time we consigned Teaching for Mastery to history, alongside Gibb, Gove and Cummings, the ideologues who promoted it.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
At last, the World Cup proper has begun. What a travesty these last two weeks have been.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
@brewdogofficial.bsky.social Cold beer? As opposed to Warm piss? Is this the worst beer in the world? Brewed for 12 year olds, perhaps? Sugar water with a bit of Ovaltine. Yuk.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Ode to Andy Just a bluff little bloke, humble <ahem> “The country needs change, I’ll be your PM” Once king of the north, he a wet and a weed A scheming chiz, now of Makersfield.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Sainsbury's v Asda tissues - similar value? £1 v 80p 226 v 180 sheets 9.3 v 6.9 m²
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
It's Maker or Breaker on the Field tonight. Will Thomas Tuchel's multicultural England team help Labour save us from Reform on Thursday?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
van Aubel's theorem:
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Look what's happened to our conker tree already
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
The in-play FIFA logo looks as though it's made of gold bars. A fitting image for the tacky commercialism leaching off the World Cup.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
@nationwideuk.bsky.social This Nationwide cumulative share payment graph: misleading in so many ways.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
In #MathsToday Three Year 5 pupils finding 'in-between' numbers, starting with 486 and 5361 and ending with 486.53. I was impressed!
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I'll be discussing this task on Friday at King's College London (BSRLM Day Conference). How would you solve it?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Channel 4's Tip Toe, a graphic demonstration of the cross that Russel ✝︎ Davis has had to bear.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Hegseth spouting the same racist ideology whose defeat he is celebrating. Dim, ignorant, nazty
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Storm cloud over sunny Wandsworth
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Which way should I jump?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
7 weeks later....
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
In #MathsToday three Y5 pupils placed/read marks on a number line. They made fine estimates for 15 (line 1) and correctly identified 12 (line 2). The made good estimates for the mark on lines 3 (17) and 4 (7) but could not make use of the value 12 from line 2, even for line 4, which surprised me.
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
In #MathsToday with three Y5 pupils. We started with a line segment with just the two marks numbered 0 and 10. I drew an arrow which they estimated as 7. They then marked and numbered the rest of the segment. I drew two more arrows which they estimated as 3.8 and 3.9, and then a line inbetween: 3.85
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
In #MathsToday, with three Y5 pupils. Which is larger, 0.75 or 0.8 ? 0.8 as same as 0.80
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
A nice bit of history from 'Designing with Type' (Craig, 1999)
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Coincidence?
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
!00 years ago today:
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Fair-sharing 12 (large) pancakes for 32 people (after Streefland, 1991)
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Part of a brilliant painting by Francisco de Zurbarán, 'Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose', but look at the strange perspective applied to the cup
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Listening to Rabbi Mirvis on Radio 4 this morning, you wouldn't know that Palestinians even existed
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Prost!
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ProfSmudge @profsmudge.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
A fairly simple number-sense task involving multiples. How different would the task be if Seth counted in 19s in 18s ?
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