[Maths-Education] The resource for the course

[Sue Pope]

t Thursday or friday morning?

From:           	"Corinne Angier" <Corinne@candf.fsnet.co.uk>
To:             	<maths-education@nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject:        	Re: [Maths-Education] The resource for the course
Date sent:      	Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:38:38 +0100
Send reply to:  	maths-education@nottingham.ac.uk

I agree with Ann and probably in their hearts so do many maths
teachers.  The difficulty is sustaining that belief and transferring
into practice in schools today.  In schools which are not under tight
surveillance it may be possible to relax and get on with doing maths
in the classroom.  For many teachers though that feels like a
forbidden luxury.  If your school or LEA is demed to be 
underachieving
then the exams (now in Y7 for many as well as Y9, Y11, Y12 and 
Y13)
inevitably dominate the agenda.  Schools which are doing well will 
now
come under increasing pressure to produce the results earlier. The
students start to become infected by the panic and as a teacher 
you
really stand out if you suggest that doing vast numbers of practice
papers, or buying revision guides or... is not a sensible use of time
and resources! There are perhaps two places though where "real",
exciting, investigative, discursive, non-national curriculum (add your
own descriptor!) maths is allowed to go on.  One is within the remit
of the (in my view) sickening "gifted and talented" policy.  The other
ironically is with the bottom 10% No-one expects these children to
achieve any results of statistical importance and I found as a 
teacher
that I had the most freedom and consequently the richest 
mathematical
experiences with these groups. 

Corinne Angier


Sue Pope
University of Surrey Roehampton
Froebel College, Roehampton Lane
London SW15 5PH
020 8392 3783