Andrew Jeffrey's December 2008
Newsletter
IMPORTANT: (Do NOT click ‘reply’ as I
will never get to see your email)
Instead, please
send all emails to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk
1. Welcome and feedback
2. Website of the Month
3. SATIPS Maths Conference
report
4. Christmas Maths
5. Top Tip
6. Fuel Costs
7. Competition Time!
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1. Welcome and Feedback
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Dear
Friends,
I must start
this month by thanking all those of you who so kindly took the trouble to feed
back on the final item in last month’s newsletter. I was overwhelmed by your
support, and decided that I have nothing to fear from leaving comments like
these in, since most people who read the blog are able to see the comments for
what they really were – to the many of you who offered support (and who, in a
couple of cases, even posted your support on the blog!) I offer my sincere gratitude.
Credit
Crunch – many people have kindly asked me how business is at the moment, given
the current climate. I am very grateful to still have work coming in, and I
rely very heavily on recommendations from satisfied schools. So far things are
going well, for which I am very grateful, so I intend to continue to visit
schools for the foreseeable future…
This month
sees a report back from the sell-out SATIPS Maths conference which I mentioned
back in September. Find out more here.
Also, a few
resources to brighten up the last week or so of the Christmas term are included
in item 4, and there is another top tip for you to agree or disagree with!
This month’s
website of the month is a little more serious than last month’s, which proved
to be one of the most popular we have ever had – lots of you replied including
one subscriber who reported that “a disaffected Year 10 girl was awestruck!”
Hey, I’m not proud – children appreciating maths in whatever way works is just
fine by me!
Finally, 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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Last month’s
Website of the Month was one of the most popular to date! This month it simply
has to be the government site giving details of the new rate of VAT. What is
important and interesting is that prices will NOT go down by 2.5%; they will
actually go down by just over 2.1%. It would make an interesting lesson for
your class to work out why…here’s the link to everything you need to know from
the horse’s mouth:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/vat-introduction.htm
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3. SATIPS Maths Conference, Feltonfleet
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I mentioned
this only once previously and as expected it was a complete sell-out. This was
hardly surprising, given the calibre of speaker that
was on offer. First up was Sir Peter Williams who gave us an update on how the plans to put a Maths Champion into every Primary school within 10
years was going. Secondly came Sir Peter Tymms, who managed the nigh-on impossible task of making a
very complex area (assessment) sound pretty simple.
In the
afternoon we had a variety of workshops ranging from Making Maths Make Sense
(including balloon-dogs!) to How The Brain Learns, and
a chance to play with Cambridge Hitachi’s remarkable Mult-e-Maths
software.
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4. Triangular Numbers
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My oldest
has recently had a birthday, and one of the most popular things we bought him
was a set of speed-stacks. If you don’t know what they are, check out this
YouTube link:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EDZ6z6RN3t4&feature=related
I have to
confess that I am becoming rapidly addicted! Not just because of the quality
time spent laughing with the sprog, but also because
of the brilliant kinaesthetic way to learn about
triangular numbers!
Apparently
even Olympic athletes try this, as it uses many different areas of the brain
and is amazing for hand-eye coordination!
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5. Top Tip
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Tip Number #30:
Reframing:
“Always be
prepared to reframe any questions which are not clear to your students. You
would be surprised which version of your question makes perfect sense to
someone else, while what you thought was your best and clearest explanation is
met with a blank look. For example, consider this actual conversation I had
with a Year 4 girl:
Teacher (T):
“One hundred plus what makes one hundred and twenty five?”
Girl (G): “Errr…”
T: “What must I add to one hundred to make one
hundred and twenty five?”
G: “Umm…”
T: “I am one hundred years old. How long until I am one hundred and twenty five?”
G: “Oh easy, twenty five years!”
It would
have been very easy to assume that the child was incapable of finding the
difference between 100 and 125, when in fact this was not the case at all.”
For 99 more
top tips, click here:
http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/products.asp#2
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6. Einstein says!
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I recently
came across this splendid quotation, for which our beloved professor must move
aside once again:
"Good
teachers are those who know how little they know. Bad teachers are those who
think they know more than they don't know."
-- R. Verdi
‘Nuff Said!
Remember
that you can get hold of loads of motivational and inspirational quotations
here.
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7. Fuel Costs
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In these
tight financial times, now that the cost of fuel has gone down a bit, I felt it
appropriate to try to make a gesture to those schools who continue to have
enough faith in me to book a visit. So
for the whole of the Spring Term I am halving my driving charges to just
20p per mile.
And of
course schools down here in Sussex pay no travel costs at all; that offer
remains on the table indefinitely. Those of you who have already booked a visit
for Jan, Feb or March please get in touch and I will
work out a way of getting the difference back to you. It’s a very small thing,
but as the old cliché goes, every little helps.
That’s it
for December’s newsletter. Have a blessed and meaningful Christmas,
however you spend it.
Merry
Christmas everyone. AJ x
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