Walking Talking Mock

by Simon Stott,
Teacher of Maths

For the first time in a fair few years, I have found myself teaching a very low ability Year 11 class.  In the recent run up to mock examinations, one particularly outspoken student made a comment on behalf of the rest of the class - “Sir, none of us have ever got more than 10 marks on each paper – what are we really going to get on this one?”

This is not something that filled me with hope – examinations were obviously not this class’s friend.

I had to do something different. Each week in the Mathematics department, our Year 11s complete a past paper – if these students sit this paper each week two things are going to happen:

a)       They are going to be disheartened by perpetual low marks, regardless of improving marks.

b)      They will undoubtedly spend 40 minutes of each of the two hour-long lessons staring into space.

So I decided to do it for them…

Initially I sat at the teacher’s desk during the hour and completed the test, every question, for them using the visualiser to project it onto the board.  I demonstrated how to present their answers, the key words that triggered my method and, most importantly, that even maths teachers go down the wrong path.  They sat and copied, we discussed the responses and the idea is that these students see what a good paper looks like BEFORE it's filled with red pen and crosses.  This made the focus more about the maths and not the errors, a positive experience which is not often the case for these students.

Above: student's answer, below: my worked answer

 

Our next step was to try for 20 minutes, unaided by myself, at the beginning of each of the two lessons we used for these assessments.  This aimed to build them up to working independently.  They tried what they could, answering only the questions that they felt they were able to get correct.  Again, the aim is for them to see correct answers when I go through it.  All of a sudden, the student was getting 75%correct (be that a reduced amount of the paper.) This is something that they would not have been able to in the past, had they completed the whole paper. 

Our aim is progressively increase the time they work independently (and to reduce my input) but to try and maintain the percentage they are getting correct.  After Christmas this 20 minutes is to become 30 minutes, February half term 45 minutes and by Easter the full hour.

This is going to be a slow process, but we in this class have a simple mantra – one mark a lesson.  If we improve by one mark each and every lesson we will end up being around 90 marks better off – this is going to be considerably closer to a Grade 4 than they were after the mocks.  This small amount of improvement in each lesson is, in the minds of this class, achievable.  They believe they can do it.  And that is what has been my personal goal, to ensure that these students believe they can improve. Reflecting on a Grade 4, will they get there?  Who knows!  Will they get closer?  They have already!