Andrew Jeffrey's September 2008
Newsletter
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Instead,
please send all emails to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk
1. Happy New Year; How Was Your
Summer?
2. Maths Website of the
Month
3. Be a Wizard with Numbers
4. The Beijing Olympics –
classroom ideas
5. MDIAB; a new unmissable
offer!
6. Super Quote for Teachers
7. Solution to July’s puzzle
8. September Bookings – very
special offer!
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1. HAPPY NEW YEAR! How was Your Summer?
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Dear
Friends,
Only a
teacher would wish you a happy new year in September! It seems an eternity
since July’s newsletter; I hope you have all had a well-deserved break, despite
the less-than fabulous weather. If you are anything like me, you can’t resist
thinking about work, though: in my 20 years in schools I never quite mastered
the art of switching off completely. We had a lovely family fortnight in
Majorca, so apologies if I have been a little slower than usual in replying to
anyone’s emails or sending out orders; I seem get about 130 emails a day at the
moment, and while most of them kindly offer to enhance my anatomy, several need
personal responses and this takes a considerable amount of time. Thanks to you
all for your patience.
And
the weirdest moment of our holiday?
Swimming near a
family in the hotel pool, an 11-year old boy looked at me and said. “Do I know you? Are you the maths man?”
What are the
chances of that?! It turns out that he and his sister attend a middle school in
Bedford I visited in July. It’s a Small World after all…
…bet you’re
humming now, aren’t you?
I mentioned
somewhat cryptically in June that I would be spending much of my summer writing
– see item 3 for more details.
Finally, in
this issue I have some ideas for you to use in your classroom based around the
fabulous Olympics; see item 4 for more.
Also we have
the usual book review and quotation features, so hopefully there will be
something for everyone.
Please
remember that since this newsletter is
sent out automatically, hitting ‘reply’ will not work – your reply will not
reach me. I can always get emails sent to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk
; please add this address to
your address book.
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2. Maths Website of the Month.
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To take full
advantage of the ideas in item 4, you will need this website (and it will cheer
you up as you contemplate the new school year!):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/medals_table/default.stm
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3. Be A Wizard With Numbers!
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I have
hitherto been deliberately vague about this until the contracts were signed,
but now I am very excited to announce that the above is to be the title of my
new book, commissioned by Duncan Baird Publishers, and to be published in the
UK, the US, and hopefully further afield as well. It is part of their Mindzone series of books, and will be published in 2009.
(No exact date yet). I am about halfway through so far, and will keep you
updated on its progress. I have a sneaky plan to try to get it to the top of
the Amazon list – to do this, I am hoping to persuade
everyone reading this to order it on the same day! The cost should be around
the £5 to £6 mark. Further updates as the publication date approaches.
Sadly it
does mean that I have temporarily abandoned the
much-promised-but-ne’er-delivered “Maths Outdoors” project, but I am still so
grateful to those of you who have sent ideas, including Grant Whitaker who took
the trouble to post me his school’s Maths Trail – thank you for that, sir, and
thanks to Shelley and all the others who have emailed ideas; I think it will be
great when it finally comes.
And remember
– it will be 100% free of charge!
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4. The Beijing Olympics
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What
a fabulous effort by Team GB this summer! Like many others, I was really
inspired by their performance, and never wanting to miss an opportunity, I set
about wondering what we could do in our maths lessons to ride on the coat-tails
of the athletes and foster real enthusiasm. Naff? Not
at all; as a nation we were genuinely excited by the extraordinary exploits of
the team, especially if wheels or water were involved, it seems. So in no
particular order, here is a list of ideas that you might try. These are not
fully-fledged lessons, just starting points for you to build on. If you try any
out, or if you think of any more, please let me know and I will publish them in
next month’s newsletter. I am also
planning to publish a pack in 2011 which will tie the entire maths curriculum
to the Olympics, but that is a long way off yet. Some of our students might
even be representing us in London the following year – how amazing would that
be!
a) Award Gold, Silver and Bronze medals
once children reach certain levels of achievement. These could be on a chart, a
certificate, or even real medals. A real incentive to hit their targets.
b) Personal Best – the term ‘PB’ is now
well ensconced in our national psyche; it is a really positive concept for
children to ‘do their best’ but with a firmer image. The learning of tables springs
to mind.
c) Relays – The idea of individuals
contributing to teams, such as the cycling or swimming teams is an important
one for group work. Maybe set each pupil a question but they must be answered
consecutively rather than together. (Ensure that you differentiate according to
ability though.)
d) The idea of training for four years,
just to perform for a couple of minutes can be used to encourage children who
are struggling. “Keep going - it will all be worth it’ when you succeed’ is the
idea here.
e) Sprinters run faster, but marathon
runners run for longer. We all learn at different rates; learning is NOT a race
against others, only against ourselves. (this is
related to the idea of PB, of course.)
f) For KS3: who was fastest – the sprint
relay team, the swimming relay team, the cycling relay team, or the coxless
fours? We need to compare the distance and time (distances and times can be
researched on the internet (try the BBC site for starters). A meaningful way to
introduce the D,S,T triangle.
g) The Medal Table – there is so much
opportunity here. What about a pie chart of Team GB’s medals, split into 3
sections? Or a bar chart. Or a comparison between nations’ gold medals. Or
probability; what is the chance of a GB medal chosen at random being a silver
one? Or more subtly, how many medals were on the plane coming home? (Not as
easy as it sounds – certainly adding up the Gold, Silver and Bronze won’t
work!). And what is the total mass of the medals won by Team GB? This would
involve a bit of research, too. If the medals were put into a stack, how high
would it be? Or what would be its volume? Or for G+T or maybe KS4 pupils, try
rearranging the medal table according to the number of medals won per head of
population? I could go on and on, but you get the idea…
h) Improvement; this is a great chance
for addition or subtraction; how much further did X jump than Y? For older
children, can they work out the percentage improvement over successive rounds?
i) Look at, for example, the shot-put
finalists’ throws; can you work out who won the medals just from the list?
j) Measurement: How many centimetres
further would Phillips Idowu need to have jumped in
order to share the Gold Medal?
Obviously
all of these questions can be adapted for use with older or younger children;
why not talk to your PE specialists about doing something cross-curricular?
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5. An Unmisseable Offer!
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MDIAB, a.k.a.
Maths Day in a Box, is becoming a very popular product (other than one school who were disappointed as they thought it would
contain lots of maths equipment- they received a full refund), but it takes
me forever to put it together. With this in mind, and listening to feedback, I
have decided to reduce the price even further without reducing the content, so
that it now costs an incredible £47, which for a training package is unheard-of
value. Here’s how I have done it:
You may be
aware that the £100 package used to consist of a ring binder CD-ROM, a
comprehensive manual, and a huge wad of printouts of all the files from the
CD-ROM. Absolutely everything was customized with the name of the school and it
took ages. I stopped the customization and reduced the price from £100 right
down to £57, figuring that this would save me time, save schools money and make
the whole thing quicker.
Even then,
that wad of about 20 extra printouts that had to be individually inserted into
wallets was causing a lot of extra time, as well as using up a load of extra
paper, so I have made a decision not to include them any more. BUT – they are
STILL on the CD-ROM in Word, pdf and Excel formats, so in fact they ARE still
included, but electronically. Now schools need only print out the forms and
letters they choose, and obviously being able to put the school name on before
doing so means that it is more environmentally friendly as well.
So now schools benefit by saving money while
still getting all the same amount of information as before (they still get the
box containing the ring binder, manual and CD-ROM), I benefit by making less money but being happier and getting the
product out much faster, and the planet
benefits as less paper is involved. In fact, the only place that doesn’t
benefit is the shop where I buy my printer paper…
If I take
this to its logical extreme, I may eventually just sell the whole product on
CD-ROM, but for the next year I will continue to sell it in the new £47 format.
‘Maths Day in a CD Case’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, somehow…
To order,
visit www.andrewjeffrey.co.uk/products.asp and scroll down to the bottom…
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6. Super Quote For Teachers
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I need your
help with this one. As I was walking through Brighton last week I noticed this
great quotation on a wall, but forgot to make a note of who is responsible. Can
anyone help?
I think it
is a real challenge to teachers to take risks in a classroom; if the lesson
doesn’t work, admit it and try something else!
“Be willing to give up what you are for what you could
become.”
Anon (at the mo!)
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7. Solution to July’s Puzzle
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There have
been a number of people trying to solve the problem posed in the last issue
(July, as there was no August newsletter). You might want to refresh your
memory, remember that you can always revisit old issues via the website, or in
this case by clicking on http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/giftdelivery/07-2008-newsletter.htm
If you would
prefer to get a few clues before you read the full answer, visit http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/uploads/counters.mht
For the full
solution, however, read on:
The whole
puzzle revolves around the fact that if two people run from opposite ends of a
10 metre line, wherever they meet they will always have run a total of 10 metres. So, since the
counters have been dealt out in the order A,B,C,DA,B
etc, simply start putting counters in from the opposite end. (D,C,B,A,D etc). This will ensure that there will always be
exactly 5 counters in each container! Don’t believe me? Try it!
And PLEEEASE
– let me know how you get on if you try it with a class.
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8. September Bookings –
very special offer!
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As bookings
are traditionally a bit slow for September, I am offering a £50 discount to any
school who books a school visit for this month. This offer is ONLY available to
subscribers, though, and you must mention the offer when booking. Another
exclusive for you!
Until Next
Time, AJ x
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