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RESOURCES

A selection of resources to support students' learning of mathematics, and teachers' and schools' promotion of such. Note that the images included on this page are not the resource; they are illustrations of what the resource is. Follow the links provided, in the format you require, to take you to a free download page in a new window.

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Favourite Number Election
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A conceit to promote mathematics across your school's community — to encourage shared mathematical talk amongst students, their families and staff — the 'Favourite Number Election' could possibly be used to mark (in part) days such as the NSPCC's Number Day, πday and the International Day of Mathematics (14 March every year), Ada Lovelace Day (9 October 2018), etc.

The ballot paper is provided here to be printed A4 double-sided and folded to make an A5 booklet.  The 20 'candidates' included on the paper are numbers that secondary school students should / may come across, to varying degrees of depth, or will otherwise be able to access, but the ballot paper can of course be customised by adding and/or removing numbers if/as wished to suit the school, age group, and purpose.

Suggested use:
  • Run a whole-school election campaign before students, staff and possibly families vote for their favourite number using the ballot paper.
    • Students volunteer to be advocates, campaigners for respective numbers, or numbers are assigned to classes, houses, etc. 
    • Run a hustings, perhaps in school assemblies, where each advocate or group of advocates argue their case for their candidate.
    • Do some polling before the actual election, gather sample data and use such in mathematics / statistics classes.
    • Publicise the result, with reasons why the number won, across the school and possibly wider.


Random Acts of Maths
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Random Acts of Maths (RAMs) are Mathematical problems, puzzles, teasers, provocations, jokes, quotes, etc., to be offered or given to students (outside of lessons), their families, school visitors, et al., for no other reason than to make people mathier.  Whilst the areas of mathematics shared through the RAMs may not necessarily be found in a typical school mathematics curriculum, they are intended to complement — and can be accessed with little if any technical knowledge or skill beyond that developed in — such curricula.

Designed to promote the doing of mathematics, and, indeed, to promote the promotion of the doing of mathematics, each RAM aims to stoke the recipient's curiosity, to encourage the recipient to want to find out more by hinting at the more that there is beyond — or down deeper in — the mathematics of the RAM itself.  RAMs can be carried out either spontaneously, or as part of a deliberate school strategy.

The RAMs are presented here in pdf, doc and png format as A6-sized 'notes': four on an A4 sheet to print double-sided and cut-to-size, with a message on the reverse encouraging the recipient to 'pass it on'.  They are also presented individually on ppt slides for those teachers who are using them in a classroom setting or for use on school media presentations.

Some suggested uses:
  • Place a stack of RAMs (printed on card) in a prominent position in your school's reception for visitors, maybe with an accompanying notice.
  • Enclose a RAM, occasionally, in correspondence with families.
  • Put a RAM a day on your school's website, and/or reception area media presentation.
  • On Open Evenings, or other whole school events, give one RAM to a student ambassador, prefect, etc., as a badge to wear and thus spike visitors' curiosities enough for them to ask the students about them.
  • Parent/carers may use such, customising if they wish with positive messages, doodles, etc., and secretly placing into the lunch boxes, or school bags of their children before they go to school. 

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xMaths Cards
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Two Christmas card designs full of mathematical problems and curios. The xMaths card is designed for schools to distribute to students and their families, to promote the doing of mathematics as and end in itself, encouraging shared maths-play over the holidays.  Various formats are provided for schools and/or teachers to customise as they wish, perhaps with the school's and/or teacher(s) name(s). The card is presented for an A4 double-sided print and fold to A5. It may also be sent electronically as a pdf. All links provided in the cards are 'clickable,' or can otherwise be followed by typing in the url, taking the user to answers, solutions and further exploration. 






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Super Curricular Activities



Super-Curricular Activities are activities that lie outside the classroom, beyond the school curriculum and beyond schools' extra-curricular offers. And whilst Super-Curricular participation is undoubtedly of benefit with University applications [1], the one-page of 'Super-Curricular Activities in Mathematics' collated and suggested here are done so purely for the 'more interested' young secondary school mathematician to explore, play and engage with outside of school. 

The 'Super Curricular Activities in Mathematics' to download below is a one-page collation of links to free resources and activities, from pre-school reading to University Admissions Tests. (Visits to museums, attendance at seminars and lectures, either online or in person, are not included in this collection, but of course are very much encouraged in super-curricular terms.) It includes suggested reading lists, suggested films and documentaries to watch, interviews and talks and explanatory animations to watch, podcasts and radio programmes to listen to, online courses to follow and engage with, and more. 

Once downloaded you can of course edit and adapt as you wish. The collation may complement schools' 'more able' programmes, but it is in no way designed nor intended to be restricted for exclusive use with students identified as 'more able'. Indeed, the intention is to get more students more interested in mathematics, expose more students to mathematics that would not ordinarily be visited in school curricula, and in doing so, expose more students to the power and beauty of the discipline.

Some suggested uses:

  • Share the Super Curriculuar Activities page with all students as they enter secondary school, as part of the transition arrangements from primary, possibly with a Head of Mathematics writing to all families to share such as part of a 'pledge' to students in terms of the super curricular opportunities the department will provide for students throughout their school career.
  • Publicise the Super Curricular Activities by printing the page as a large poster and place in a prominent position in your school's mathematics department.
  • Establish a mathematics club that focuses on one activity of the super curriculum
  • Encourage other departments to make their own set of Super Curricular activities, using the same format, and share such through a dedicated 'Super Curriculum' page on the school website.

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     Extra Stuff to Do at Home Corridor Cards
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    A set of over 50 brochure style leaflets (more added regularly), full of mathematical problems, that are designed to promote the doing of mathematics for the sake of it, without that is any externally derived compulsion to do so, with no time-limits or deadlines or expectation of completion.  The leaflets are intended to be housed in school corridors for students to pick up a problem as and when and if they wish.  It is important to note that they are not a replacement for homework, but rather a compliment to it.  They are about promoting an unashamedly purist approach to mathematics with students, that we do mathematics in other words because we are curious about finding things out, because we find some things intriguing and want to find out more, because of the sense of adventure that comes with solving problems and, indeed, in doing so, finding more problems to solve.

    On each card students are encourage to 'Have a go at some (or all!) of these problems at home. They are problems we find interesting or just plain amusing. Ask your parents, brothers and sisters, or friends to try and do the problems with you, or against you!'  Students should be encouraged to return the card to a teacher and, if possible, have a chat with them about it.  Ideally, students who attempt the most problems should be rewarded at the end of a half or full term — being celebrated perhaps an assembly and/or through school-home communication (Newsletter, special single-item communication from the Headteacher, social-media), and perhaps receiving a mathematically themed prize. 

    Each card is presented here as a 1/3 A4 sized 'brochure', three on an A4 sheet to print double-sided and cut-to-size, with the reverse providing some blank space for solutions.  They may be stored in departmental corridors, in a wall-mounted leaflet dispenser such as shown in the second image below, or perhaps in an outdoor brochure dispenser box for members of the public to pick up (both can be purchased from most major educational suppliers).

    Downloads:



    Curios, Quotes, etc. for Display
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    A set of 100 mathematical quotes, curios, provocations, etc. (more added regularly), designed for use in mathematics spaces to colour our classrooms with mathematics, and avoid moreover the 'cheeze-fest' of the motivational poster, as Tom Sherrington memorably described it in this post.  The real risk that the explicitly motivational poster that urges you to have a 'growth mindset' actually reinforces a 'fixed mindset' is removed with the use of posters whose fundamental purpose is to celebrate the subject you are studying.

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    Mathematical Formulae Display
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    A set of over 50 A4 (or A3) sized posters displaying the formulae that students will come across in the course of their mathematics and statistics studies up to GCSE.  Each poster is designed to be printed on acetate and affixed to windows for a 'stained glass' effect, as illustrated in the image below.

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    Mathematical Vocabulary Display
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    A set of over 80 posters displaying the key mathematical vocabulary (with definitions) that students will come across in the course of their mathematics studies up to GCSE.  Each poster is designed to be printed on A4 (or A3) acetate, cut to size and affixed to windows for a 'stained glass' effect, as illustrated in the image below.

    Downloads:



    Maths in the News Corridor Leaflets
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    Brochure style leaflets (more added regularly) outlining recent news reports with a mathematical bent.  As with the 'Extra Stuff to do at Home' cards, the leaflets are intended to be housed in school corridors for students to pick up a problem as and when and if they wish. They are about promoting an interest in the wider aspects of mathematics, as well as heightening students' awareness of the relevance of mathematics in everyday life.

    Each leaflet is presented here as a 1/3 A4 sized 'brochure', to be folded in thirds.  They may be stored in departmental corridors, in a wall-mounted leaflet dispenser such as shown in the second image in the 'Extra Stuff to do at Home' section, or perhaps in an outdoor brochure dispenser box for members of the public to pick up (both can be purchased from most major educational suppliers).

    A template is provided for schools and teachers to populate as desired.

    Downloads:



    Multiplication Tables Practice Booklets
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    A set of 4-page booklets, designed for children to improve their recall — and the rapidity of their recall — of simple multiples, from 1 × 1 to 12 × 12, through embedding their understanding of what a multiple is, what a multiple means.  Each booklet follows exactly the same format and is intended to be completed ideally one-to-one in discussion with another person that is proficient with their 'times tables', e.g. parent, teacher, teaching assistant, elder sibling.  Each booklet is best suited, therefore, for intervention work with individual students or small groups.

    Working through each booklet will support children's understanding of the commutative nature of multiplication, their appreciation of the link between multiplication and division, their appreciation about how our language makes a difference to our understanding, and their burgeoning understanding of multiples relatively as rates.  Each booklet — presented for an A3 double-sided print and fold to A3, or printed in 4 separate A4 pages — has QR code links to the excellent and simple online 'Maths from Scratch' resources, which puts recent research into practice with children practising groups of four multiples at a time at gradually increasing speeds.  Each booklet ends with a gradated 'mission impossible' test that children can complete timed or not.

    Downloads (all pdf):

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