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Out and About
We are always out and about in schools, colleges and universities, working with a variety of teachers, professionals and students. These are some of the activities that members of the team have been up to in the last month:Jennifer Piggott - NRICH Project Director
Early in October Jenny, together with other members of the NRICH team, ran workshops at the first of this year's Teacher Inspiration Days. The day was a great success with very positive feedback from teachers involved.
Jenny attended the session for the teachers of pupils involved in the Enriching Mathematics Project in Tower Hamlets. The session was led by Alison and was a preparation for the forthcoming pupil workshops taking place on most Wednesdays over this term and next.
In mid October Jenny made her annual trip to Ireland to support Mathematics Week. Jenny spent four days in Dublin working with teachers, pupils and training teachers at secondary and primary levels. As ever, Irish hospitality and the warmth and kindness of colleagues in Ireland make a possible invitation to return next year irresistible.
Later in the same week, Jenny went to Hebburn Comprehensive School in Tyneside to give a keynote talk and workshop at the area subject training day.
Over the month Jenny has also been working with the team planning for future developments of the project and considering how NRICH can measure its impact on learners, teachers and families.
Liz Woodham - Primary Coordinator
Liz has been jetting around the country in October, working with teachers and children in various locations. At the beginning of the month, she spent two consecutive days with Lynne McClure working with primary teachers in Hammersmith and Fulham, focusing on ways of stretching 'gifted and talented' pupils in mathematics. Two more days with the same teachers will follow this term and Liz is looking forward to finding out about their experiences of using NRICH with their classes.
In addition, Liz spent time with teachers in Penrith and Morley, Leeds, introducing them to the website and encouraging reflection about rich mathematical tasks. In Hitchin, Liz worked with Year 2 and Year 6 children before leading a staff meeting and in Warwick, she enjoyed playing a range of mathematical games with a masterclass group of Year 5/6 learners.
Liz spent a weekend in Derby at the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM) General Council meeting and also attended the joint ATM and Mathematical Association (MA) primary subcommittee meeting. It is always a pleasure to be surrounded by colleagues who are so passionate about primary mathematics!
Following the trial of using an online classroom with three groups of learners in September, Liz led a web conferencing session with one of the schools. She is looking forward to later in November when we hope to have at least two of the schools web conferencing together, discussing the tasks they have been working on.
Liz, Bernard and Jenny Murray spent a whole day beginning to plan some Early Years Foundation Stage resources for NRICH. This is an exciting time and we look forward to developing this level of activities further.
Charlie Gilderdale
In early October we welcomed almost 100 teachers to the first meeting of the 2009/10 series of Teacher Inspiration Days. Charlie ran two Key Stage $3$ workshops on the day. If you would like to receive details of the 2010/11 programme, please email us and we will add you to our mailing list.
Together with Alison, Charlie continued to develop Stage 3
and 4 resources for the website.
Steve Hewson - Post-16 coordinator
This month Steve has largely been working on the planning for
future developments of the NRICH project. There has also been
some time for visits and workshops.
Steve made a trip to Swavesey Village College, where staff
are making use of the materials from stemNRICH in
cross-curricular contexts. We hope to build on this work.
The first of the 2009/10 series of teacher inspiration days
started very successfully with two good groups of thoughful
A-level teachers exploring the possibilities of the stage 5
NRICH material in the classroom.
Steve also went to the National STEM Centre in York to meet
managers from the STEM community and give a session stemNRICH - teaching mathematics
in engineering and scientific contexts. There is a lot
of potential for rich tasks in the teaching of STEM subjects
and Steve hopes to work on this over the following year.
Steve had a Nuffield Bursary Student working with him over
the summer and, following the conclusion of the project, went
to meet the Nuffield team and other project providers at
their celebation/networking event.
Steve now has three PhD students working with him on using
NRICH materials to aid students making the transition to
university. Together, they spent lots of time working on
stemNRICH in preparation for a final release of the material
in December.
Alison Kiddle
Alison led a session with Key Stage 4 teachers at the first
of this year's Teacher
Inspiration Days. We worked together on a series of
problems about transforming straight line graphs.
This year's Tower Hamlets Enriching
Mathematics Project started up on October 7th with a
session for teachers to familiarise them with some of the
NRICH problems we will be working on together. Pupil sessions
began a week later, and pupils had the opportunity to work
together on Zin Obelisk
as well as a selection of problems from the October NRICH
site. Pupil sessions will continue through November and in
the New Year.
In mid-October, Alison spent a very pleasant morning working
with some Year 8 students as part of a series of
Masterclasses here in Cambridge. It was impressive to see how
enthusiastic they were about working on maths problems,
especially on a Saturday morning!
Alison has also spent a lot of time this month working with
Charlie to develop Stage 3 and 4 resources for the website.
Hands-on Maths Roadshow - Sue Hickman Pinder
The Hands-on Maths Roadshow continues to visit schools throughout the UK and Ireland. Forthose who aren't aware of the Roadshow, it uses hands-on versions of NRICH activities and is now in its tenth year. More information can be found in the Roadshow Package in the 'Packages' section of the 'For Teachers' menu.
Since the beginning of the autumn term Sue has visited for the first time the King Edmund School in Rochford, Essex, for two days, and Heritage School in Cambridge.
Return visits have been made to Corfe Hills School in Broadstone, Dorset, for three days, Alder Community High School in Hyde, Cheshire, for two days, Dover Girls Grammar School and Rainham Mark Grammar School, Gillingham, Kent.
Range High School in Formby, Liverpool, once again invited local primary school chldren to take part in the Roadshow sessions during the day. Year 6 pupils from St Jerome's, St Luke's and Woodlands Primary Schools in Formby enjoyed working alongside Year 12 students from Range.
Also, it was good to welcome again, into the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, a group of Year 7 pupils from the Cambridgeshire Independent State School Partnership (ISSP) for an afternoon of Hands-on challenges and Enigma Codebreaking activities.
In Halifax, at the Heath Training Centre, pupils from 36 primary and secondary schools were invited to Roadshow sessions - this was the seventh annual visit to the Heath.
Through continued support from the Cambridgeshire Safer Routes to School Project the Roadshow also visited six local primary schools - Newnham Croft, Godmanchester, Bottisham, Little Thetford, Friday Bridge and Park Lane, Whittlesey.
A great start to the 2009-2010 academic year, it's been a pleasure to meet and work with new pupils and teachers, and always good to be welcomed back by teachers who've seen the Roadshow before and are keen to be involved in return visits.
This term is fully booked but there are a few dates available for spring and summer terms 2010. Booking details can be found here.
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NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project, which also includes the Plus and Motivate sites.
email: nrich@damtp.cam.ac.uk
