What an amazing afternoon the children all had on Thursday 2nd February. Jayne Warburton, the CEO of Mathletics UK and Deane Tomlin, their NE representative visited us, with Scott Flansburg. Scott is in the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘Human Calculator!’ He had lunch first with some of the Year 6 pupils and then wowed the staff and pupils of Years 5 & 6. Most importantly, he showed the children that Maths is fun and exciting – he inspired and motivated them to do their best and never give up. It wasn’t just a show of Maths tricks and magic – but a magical performance, that lifted everyone to give them belief in what they too could achieve. Thank you so much……………
Mathletics is already helping to make a difference to the pupils at Hovingham – and after Scott’s performance he stayed on to award certificates to the pupils who had achieved their Gold Mathletics Awards. Here are the slides that showed the winners on the screen in the hall – Iqra has her 5th Award and Akleem received his 6th! Fantastic achievements!
Calendar News also came to the event and then after school Akleem and his family were invited to go to the Calendar Studios. Here is a link to the filming that appeared on Calendar that evening!
Today I’m visiting BETT for the 1st time – I’m excited about what I will learn and the people I will meet – and I’m going to be talking on the Mathletics stand about how Mathletics has played a key part in motivating our pupils and giving them confidence in Maths – which now permeates across the curriculum. In case I’m ‘stage struck’ these are my thoughts, early in the morning before setting off!
Mathletics has done so much for us at Hovingham – I am really proud to be able to share our successes and achievements that have resulted from using this program.
Starting our journey.
Hovingham Primary signed up to Mathletics in September 2009. MAthletics came and did a session with my Year group, and then I repeated this with each class throughout school and led a staff meeting on it.
I held a parents meeting, explaining what MAthletics was, and also asking for parental support for after school clubs. Many of our pupils do not have computer access at home – or share it with brothers and sisters, and so it has been important to set up clubs so everyone can get Internet access.
Initially, with the help of a TA, I ran all the clubs, but as staff have seen the impact of Mathletics, more have volunteered to run clubs and now each year group organises their own lunchtime club , and each evening is run by a different member of staff, with parents supporting – I only have the Friday after school club slot! Recently I have started a Breakfast club on Thursdays and a Parents breakfast club on Fridays! Soon we will be playing morning, noon and night!
We have just fundraised – using the Mathletics Four Nations Challenge, and the £3000+ is being used to buy Blackberry Playbooks to increase the club size to 40+ !
Keeping Going!
Now we are into our 3rd year – and playing more than ever!
Staff now have really seen the impact, and so encourage their children to play, use the site in lessons, set challenges, use it for assessments and praise the children for their achievements.
Parents have seen the impact – those with the Internet at home, encourage their children to play, they support the clubs, and their hard work to help with the fund-raising was truly amazing. Some families set an alarm of their mobile phones to remind them it is a new Mathletics week!
Children – with ‘Going for Goals’ as our SEAL theme – there is hardly a child who doesn’t reel off -’Gold Matheltics Certificate’ as one of their Goals!
Celebrating!
Every week in the Friday assembly, on the big screen, the children are shown the Mathletic Champion for each Year group – this encourage the children to aim higher than the 1000 points required for their weekly Bronze certificate.
They also then see the Mathletics Leader board – no 10 on the board is currently over 15,000 and the top score achieved in 1 week is 30,000! The Leader Board is also on display in the ICT suite – originally I had made it to 20,000, but have now had to extend it up to the ceiling to reach 30,000+!
Every half term we hold a Mathletics Celebration to award children who have received their Gold Certificates. Parents are invited, along with some special guests! Someone from the Mathletics team joins us for the celebrations – and we have had Ronnie the Rhino for Leeds Rhinos, Lucas the Kop Cat from Leeds United, Danny Buderus – Rugby player, and then dignities like the Lord Mayor, the CEO of Education Leeds and the Lord Lieutenant! The celebration involves lots of cheering and singing – and a cup of tea for the parents at the end, while the children take photo opportunities!
Moving forward……
In the entrance hall we now proudly display the ‘Matheltics Centre of Excellence!’ plaque, and Maths has a real buzz about it. Every child is set at their appropriate level of challenge on Mathletics, and yet when playing together the interface looks the same, what ever level you are on – so they all feel a sense of achievement.
Next month we award our first 6th Gold Certificate, thats virtually a certificate every week since the day we started in 2009!
Impact – in 2009 our L4 SATS was 42% – in 2012 we are on target for 76% L4 – with about 20% aiming for L5! -now that’s worth celebrating!
In 2 Palm at Hovingham Primary we have used the Wii in Literacy, using the game ‘Endless Oceans’ and in PE sessions, using the game ‘ Zumba.’ Both games have engaged the children – ‘Endless Oceans’ had the children all engaged and follow up work resulted in them describing fish they had encountered with meaningful adjectives. When using Zumba, all the class followed the moves – even though only one child was holding the remote. Although as staff we were only learning about how the console worked, the children – even those who were not familiar with a Wii were eager to use the controls and almost instinctively could navigate the games.
I have read articles about Games based learning - http://www.futurelab.org.uk/ & http://www.gamebasedlearning.org.uk/
http://ictmagic.visibli.com/share/VnXOc2 linking to the Pora Ora game website states -
Play and games add to learning the elements that ‘chalk and talk’ generally cannot, for example:
Enjoyment
Motivation
Competition
Persistence
Resilience
Problem solving in context
Every child being engaged at their own level
With this in mind – I have looked at the wii game Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 2012 – and considered how it could be used in Primary Maths. I think it will be most useful for lessons in KS2, and will endeavor to collaborate with KS2 colleagues and do some lesson study together on the use of the game.
Initial thoughts on how Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic games wii – could be used in Primary Maths.
This screen shot shows the range of sporting events in the main section if the game – there are further sections which pupils would no doubt enjoy exploring, but might be better saved for ‘Golden Time’ or used as rewards. The range of events shows that results will include data presented in the form of distances ( long jump) times and points. With in most of these sections there are further choices of games, and then once a game is selected there are options as to how the game is played – 1,2,3 or 4 player options – either with multiple controls or as turn taking.
When an event is selected from the main menu, it will often open another sub menu with a further choice of events. With the selection above – the 100m sprint was a simple event to play and was very quick, so the amount of time during a maths lesson spent playing the game would be minimal, yet sufficient to engage pupils and give the lesson a context from which to base the Maths.
The above is a screen shot of the results of a race on the 100, sprint. The game was easier enough for a complete novice like myself to play – and WIN! The results produce data for 8 runners and are times to the third decimal place.
Pupils could
Estimate – before the race.
Placing the scores on a numberline
Round the times
Find the difference between times.
Find the average time
Represent the data as a graph.
Compare the data with 100m date from their own PE lesson, or from previous Olympic races.This screen shot shows the results from the Rhythmic Ribbon event – which you can see I did not master! The results for this event are in points – pupils could sort the events into those that have results as points, times, distances and goals. Again this event provides data with numbers going to the third decimal point.
This screen shot shows results from the 4x100m relay – so pupils could work out the average time for the team members, dividing the final times by 4. This screen shot shows results for the long jump – which of course is an event which the children could actually do themselves in PE and measure their own jumps to compare with those on the game, and those in actual Olympic competitions. Again all the Maths activities mentioned previously could be applied to the data from this game.
The games I have looked at so far all produce data with results which have 3 decimal places – so the maths would be appropriate for upper KS2 pupils – other games such as Badminton, Table tennis and Football produce scores of a much simpler nature, and these would be appropriate for data handling activities at KS1. At present I haven’t used the game with pupils, I will update my blog when I do so. I am also very keen to hear from other teachers who have used this or similar games with Primary school pupils – especially in a Maths context.
On Thursday the children dressed as their avatars and we held our Mathletics Celebration – awarding certificates to all the children who had reached their Gold Awards. Daniel in Yr 4 achieved his 5th Gold award – that requires 100 certificates! We now have 4 children in school who have their 5th awards!
Lucas the Kop Kat from Leeds United and Deane from Mathletics helped award the certificates and as usual we all enjoyed singing, clapping and celebrating together. We especially enjoyed this video -
Well I wish it could be this Maths everyday
When the kids start winning and MATHLETICS starts to play
Oh I wish it could be this Maths everyday
So let the bells ring out for this Maths…..
Mathletics has kindly donated £200 to our fundraising for devices on which to access Mathletics and the Internet – and we have now reached our new target of £3000! Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the appeal – it will mean that we can increase the number of places at our Mathletics clubs at lunchtime, afterschool and breakfast time! The devices will also be used in classes for group work.
Thank you to all the businesses, families, staff – everyone who has helped us to raise funds for devices so we can increase the number of pupils who attend our Mathletics clubs, and provide Internet access which can be used in classes. Together we are now aiming for £3000!
What a brilliant week! Everyone worked really hard in the Four Nations Challenge – and your scores were fantastic! This week we have been busy getting sponsor money to help us to buy new equipment for the computer suite, so that more children can come to the Mathletics Clubs and get on the Internet to enjoy learning on sites like Bug Club and blogging. I can not believe that we have already raised over £1900 and I know that some people are still busy collecting their sponsor money.
We are also going to have a fun ‘Dress as your Mathletics Avatar’ day, for our next Mathletics Celebration on December 8th – and everyone will be asked to bring in £1. So now we are aiming even higher! Can we make it to £3000? I believe that together we could… Many thanks to all family and friends, and local business for your amazing support so far.
The pupils at Hovingham Primary from Year 2 – Year 6 all love using Mathletics. We have now used the site for just over 2 years and the impact is really showing. Our results are getting better – but more importantly their is a real buzz in Maths classes and the children are so much more confident - not only about Maths – but this confidence has had a knock on effect on the rest of their learning.
3P Learning who provide Mathletics also do a spelling site – which the children can link too from Mathletics – so now we are starting to use that too to boost their spelling!
There is no doubt that computers engage and motivate children to learn – the Internet drives learning in the 21st Century. At Hovingham we use the computer suite for Mathletics clubs every day – at breakfast time, lunchtimes and after school. The clubs are full to capacity – and the computers are old and slow.
Pupils at Hovingham are all competing in the Four Nations Challenge. We have two goals -
We are all going to do our very best, and we are aiming very high. We want to get winning scores, to help England win! We would really like to represent England on World Maths Day – that would make us feel so proud of our achievements and our school and community.
We are doing the Four Nations Challenge as a sponsored event – and the money raised will towards getting more computer access for pupils in school. We would be able to increase the numbers of children attending the clubs and pupils would be able to use the computers in their classes. We know that this would help to raise progress and achievement.
Please support Hovingham Primary raise funds for computers –
you can donate a set amount or sponsor us at £/p per 1000 points of our total score.
Next weekend i will blog about how the event goes at school and how our fund raising is proceeding!
I drove back to Leeds, so fired up with enthusiasm, inspiration and admiration. I felt that every 7 minutes gave me as much as I often learned from a complete day on a course, every 2 minute presentation was like the contents of a meeting – in a snap shot. It has really taken me the weekend to unpack all that I stuffed in to my brain! It was just wonderful – so huge thanks to Dave Mitchell and all the staff at Heathfield, and Dughall – and everyone who presented. Thanks too, to the lovely people on my table who made me feel so welcome – being a shy person who normally finds even going into the staff room difficult – attending Teach Meet is soooo out of my comfort zone – but the learning experience is so worth the effort.
it was fantastic to meet Simon Haughton, his Infant Encyclopedia is just such a wonderful resource. He has also done a fantastic resume of the Teach Meet Bolton evening on his blog, complete with all the links.
I also was fascinated by David Mitchell’s use of Coverit Live. How he used it to engage the children in a session with Pie Corbett was amazing – but also the concept of being able to work with pupils using it during snow closures was very interesting… I shall be finding out more about how to use it…
The presentation by Simon Wood @idea_factory was just packed with so many awesome ideas – I am still working my way through all the links! It made me want to read more of his ideas – and his website is a pandora’s box of inspiring and thought provoking links and ideas. Then a tweet of his took me off down a tangent reading Tim Rylands blog….
I’m watching for the next Teach Meet – and even contemplating a Leeds Teach Meet at Hovingham! Thanks
Teach meets are organised by teachers for teachers, through Twitter. I have only recently discovered Twitter – and already have learned so much by connecting with other teachers and professionals and getting the opportunity to learn from the knowledge they share. I went to the Teach Meet in Leeds earlier in the year, and inspired by this I am off to Bolton today.
Today I want to share some of the elements that have helped to engage more of our pupils in Maths over the last 2 years. I started to put a presentation together – but you only get 7 minutes to present and actually I could talk for hours about the things that have helped to make a difference at Hovingham – so I decided not to use a Smart Notebook or Powerpoint – but just to chat and share some ideas. These are the notes I have put together…..
In 2009 Hovingham Primary had 42% of Y6 pupils who achieved L4.The school has never achieved floor targets and is regarded as a ‘Challenging School’ by authorities.
I view Hovingham as the best opportunity that our pupils have to ‘make a difference,’ to their lives… and so my goal is to do everything possible to help make that difference.
This year our Target for Maths at the end of KS2 is 72+% L4, with 20+% at L5 – and I am confident we will achieve it!
Pupil interviews told me that what makes the difference between children that succeed and those who don’t – is that some ‘just aren’t bothered.’
Making Maths Matter – so everyone is ‘bothered’.
Kinaesthetic – I see it, I understand it.
Auditory- I sing it, it sticks in my head!
Visual- I see what you mean…
In context- I understand why I need to learn it.
21st Century Learning. – I learn it my way!
Kinaesthetic Learning.
Hands on learning and active learning
· Models and images – like Numicon – then move on to invisible version so children learn to visualise.
· Skip counting – counting as you skip – in 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, etc.
· Maths circuit training – sorting out odd and even numbers into hoops either end of the hall etc.
· Dances – numberbond dances, Riverdance – for 2 times table.
· Kung fu number bonds
Auditory Learning
The Kylie Minogue effect – sing it and it stays in your head.
· U tube – school house rock versions of every times table, & songs like the ‘Polygon Song.’ Download and drop into Notebook.
practise begins on Monday – event is Nov17th – Nov 18th – so we can combine as a sponsored event for Children In Need!
You can read all about the impact of Mathletics at Hovingham further on in this blog – but just to say that at 8.30am this morning I started the day at my Parents Mathletics Club! We now have over 20 parents who have their own Mathletics Log ins. Some are learning so they can support their children with their learning, and others are working on their own Maths to improve their changes of getting a job or to get their own Maths GCSE in time. All of them are modelling a ‘love of learning’ to their families.
I know that I will learn so much at tonights Teach Meet - many thanks to David Micthell (@DeputyMitchell) and Dughall McCormick (@Dughall) for organising it.
T