In our experience, many supply teachers fear covering a maths lesson. Whether that is down to a lack of confidence in their maths ability, because they didn’t enjoy maths at school or because they know that students can often be unengaged in a maths lesson, Sparx Maths can help alleviate these fears.

In the classroom and at home, Sparx Maths provides a complete solution that delivers important benefits for school leaders, teachers, students and parents, from personalised learning for every student to incredible real-time insights into class and student progress.

Rigorously tested content, covering the KS3 and GCSE maths curricula, is devised and handwritten by our in-house teams. Over 35,000 questions are backed up by more than 8,300 tutorial videos that help explain concepts in accessible ways and encourage independent learning. Based on years of research and collaboration with schools, we’ve developed our own scheme of learning which maps the national curriculum and is aligned with every major exam board. Sparx can also be mapped to a school’s existing scheme of learning.

With Sparx Maths, schools, subject teachers and supply teachers receive detailed lesson plans which contain learning objectives and content aligned to the scheme of learning the school is following, suggested timings for each lesson, and teaching notes which outline which methods are used in the tutorial videos. Our carefully crafted questions, which range in difficulty, challenge students who can then watch video tutorials when they get stuck.

Throughout the lesson, teachers can access real-time insights into their students’ progress, and students who are struggling are flagged to the teacher so they can provide targeted intervention where needed. Insights can help teachers understand how a child behaves in a maths lesson. For example, they can see how many times a student has watched a tutorial video, how long they are watching the video for and whether they are watching the video before attempting the question. 

Teachers can also see what a student’s incorrect attempts at a question were and how long it has been since they last attempted a question. This helps supply teachers no end as they might not know much about the students they are teaching, but can easily identify those which need their support.

Sparx Maths will also automatically set an hour of personalised homework for every student each week based on what was taught in that week’s lessons, previously mastered content and skills they need to work on. 

By providing supply teachers with a detailed lesson plan to follow, relevant handwritten questions, and video tutorials they can watch with students to help them understand the skills needed to answer questions, Sparx Maths ensures that your learners receive a consistent, high-quality lesson whilst your supply teacher feels empowered and confident to deliver the lesson. 

If you have any questions about Sparx Maths, please visit www.sparx.co.uk or get in touch via schools@sparx.co.uk or 01392 440 440.

Firstly we will consider Collaboration. Although there are lots of opportunities given in school for collaboration in groups and teams, from quick conversations through to group projects, it’s online where collaboration can mimic, and therefore prepare students for, the world of work. There are an increasing number of jobs where remote working and flexible working is in option. Collaboration via technology, and cloud-based systems, is key to ensuring teams can work together, whether they are all working on one document or collating documents and work together in one online folder for dissemination across the company. There are plenty of tools which schools are using for this already in an educational setting – Google Drive and Microsoft O365 are examples of this. The Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams tools have been developed following feedback from schools who wanted to take online working further for their students.

This also leads nicely into the second C – Communication. Again there are options in Microsoft and Google suites which encourage communication. Many other more educational technology products also facilitate this. Learning Platforms in many forms, including home-school communications and homework tools, all form part of a wider communication structure in any organisation. In business a popular tool is Slack, which many schools also use for staff communications even if not for students. Whatsapp is also increasingly common as a communication tool for education and work, not just for social chats and organising nights out!

Creativity is the third C and probably the trickiest to pin down. Is using a “creative” tool such as iPad drawing apps or online movie making tools classed as genuine creativity? Maybe so. But also creativity can be defined as simply finding new, better or more efficient, ways of doing things we have always done. In schools this may manifest as using video tools such as Flip Grid for Pupil Voice, or using VR to teach someone about a situation they have not experienced before. In work places technology may allow for more creative ways of running a team across multiple continents, or finding a way to cut costs by using new technology to calculate packaging needs.

Finally we come to the 4th C – Critical Thinking. Here things get really exciting in education and in the workplace. Critical Thinking has the capacity to change the world, even if often only for a specific need. The ability to evaluate what we do, think of entirely new inventions, and the capacity to see that through to fruition, are very tricky skills to build authentically into the curriculum. Yet programmes such as Apps for Good, who got to schools and also run national competitions, have resulted in students creating amazing new apps with a view to making genuine change in the world.

More generally, anything we do to use technology in a positive way, being the role models in front of students and giving them opportunities to try multiple ways of working and applying their skills across the curriculum, the more likely it is that we give them the skills that will follow them through life – making them more likely to go past what can be a very superficial application of technology and social media.

The power of story has been long recognised and researched – and Goldsmiths University of London have found one particular storytelling resource to be making a big difference to schools.

Tales Toolkit puts quality interactions at the heart of everything they do. Created by an ex deputy head teacher while working in some of the most deprived areas of London, Tales Toolkit uses story, a powerful learning gizmo, to engage children. All resources are labelled with easily recognised symbols for Character, setting, problem and solution giving the children skills to independently weave magical tales. Stories are created using anything to hand from a picture of Mum or favourite toy to a conker. Once children are confident storytellers there are lots of resources to get them writing their tales.

Being symbol based all children can easily understand and remember the story structure, even those not yet reading or speaking English. And – you’re going to like this bit – because Tales Toolkit is led by the children there’s little or no planning involved.

Schools that sign up are provided with a package of physical resources along with a year’s subscription to online training for all staff. With the budget crisis, schools are commenting that training provided in this way, where all staff are trained with no need for supply costs, helps them provide the CPD that’s much needed.

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One headteacher commented ‘All staff, new and experienced, have embraced Tales Toolkit with real enthusiasm and we are reaping the benefits from our equally enthusiastic children. Our children are talking more, confidently telling creative stories as well as engaging in mark making earlier than we usually see it. A real strength is the quality of the training materials which bring together a wealth of sound practice in an accessible and supportive format which you can watch again and again, and we have!’

Stockport, Rochdale and Oxfordshire boroughs have invested local authority money to provide Tales Toolkit for schools in their area. Some of their schools were involved in the research from Goldsmiths which found Tales Toolkit made a significant impact made to children’s language and communication, social skills, literacy and creativity. Schools using Tales Toolkit closed the gender gap in literacy by 62% while control schools saw the gap widen by 22%.

Tales Toolkit while mainly UK based, is now being used in over 200 schools in 12 countries. Winning a number of awards from Teach First, UnLtd, Teach Early Years and Nursery World.

To find out more, read case studies from schools and join their free to attend webinars with top education experts visit their website www.talestoolkit.com or drop an email to info@talestoolkit.com

This is why, now more than ever before, it is essential to look ahead and to teach and train young people to be independent, to learn how to learn, and to love this process and this journey because this is what will enable and empower them to face whatever life throws at them in the future. Educating the youth of today requires placing emphasis not only on learning and acquiring a solid core of knowledge, but also, and possibly more importantly, on developing skills that will allow them to thrive in the world. These so-called 21st century skills are Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Critical thinking: the Four Cs.
But how do we take these concepts and bring them to life in the classroom? There is no secret recipe, but using tech certainly facilitates our efforts. Here are some strategies and activities I have used and have been successful. Feel free to adopt, adapt, and add to them.

Collaboration
In my school, we have started using Microsoft Teams. This has enabled us to maintain a constant and open dialogue amongst staff, but also between teachers and students, and amongst students themselves. I encourage my classes to ask questions in the team space and to attempt to answer them. Often a single student cannot answer the question raised, but by putting in his or her two cents, this triggers someone else to add to the discussion, and very soon, everyone has benefited from everyone else’s input. This yields a far richer experience than if the first student had simply emailed me a question and I had provided guidance or an answer. Teams is not the only software out there that allows these types of group discussion. Showbie, Socrative, Class Dojo or Canvas all offer similar capabilities for collaboration.

Communication
In addition to the collaborative benefits of some of the software options mentioned above, there are clear communication benefits, in the ease with which messages can be passed on and shared in real time. But I want to talk about a different aspect of communication.

I am a teacher of languages (mostly), so you can imagine how important communication has always been to me. I believe language learners should take risks and attempt to use the language they are learning, even if they make mistakes. But I don’t need to tell you how daunting that prospect can be, especially for a teenager in front of a whole class of teenagers. So here is where tech comes in. I have used voice recognition software to help students practise their pronunciation. They need to read out a short extract, focusing on pronouncing all words correctly in Spanish. If their pronunciation is clear, Siri, Cortana, or Google Assistant will transcribe accurately. But if they muddle the sounds, the output will be wrong. And I don’t need to tell them. They realize it themselves and work independently on improving their productions. So when they do speak out in class and try to communicate with me, other students, or even Spanish people, they are much more effective and feel more secure.

Creativity
We all have our strengths, but creativity is not one of mine. Fortunately for my students, my limitations in this area do not need to be their limitations too. Using the students’ devices has allowed me to let my students unleash their creativity. I will often set up a task that has two possible formats: one, a given task that enables my students to use the language we have been studying (for example); and another in which the use of the language is necessary, but the actual outcome is completely up to the individuals or groups undertaking the task. For instance, with my Year 7 Spanish class we were studying physical descriptions. I asked them to find a photograph online of someone they admired and gave them a choice between writing a description of the person in the photograph or creating a “Wanted” poster. Those who chose the second option produced brilliant posters and really went to town on the descriptions, taking risks they may not have done if they had simply written a description. We voted on the best posters and put them on display in the classroom. So in addition to meeting our academic aims, I was able to update my display boards with little effort from myself. And the kids were very proud of their work. The next time I gave them a choice, even more students chose the creative task. Win-win!

Critical thinking
In my classroom I have a big sign showing the five Bs: Brain, Board, Book, Buddy, Boss. The use of technology in the classroom has expanded the meaning of Board and Book, and therefore allowed me to push my students to higher order thinking from the very first lesson. I aim to give them the tools so that they can make their own connections and tackle increasingly challenging tasks. And if they ask or say that they don’t know how to do the task set, I always guide them back to the resources I have made available to them that provide enough scaffolding for them to stretch themselves and learn new concepts. For example, I will give my GCSE Spanish students an “open book” grammar test. “Open book” means that they can use their textbooks (online), plus Quizlet (online vocabulary learning tool), plus grammar reference pages… anything, except for automatic translators. But the tasks in the test are about putting concepts in practice, so even with all those tools, they have to think in order to figure out what rule to apply, how it should be used, and finally provide an answer. The first time we do it, everyone thinks it will be super easy… they soon learn that thinking is much more difficult than memorizing, but the benefits are spectacular. After one of these tests, if I give them an exam-style writing task, they always improve their scores.

Focusing on developing these skills is crucial. We don’t know what the future has in store for our students. But if they know how to think critically, collaborate with each other by using good communication strategies, and have some creativity to draw from, we will have equipped them with strong, useful tools to tackle the challenges they will face, even those we cannot yet foresee.

Early in my teaching career, I did a lot of work around assessment for learning (AFL). I found that embedding the principles of AFL into my teaching of writing to be particularly effective. Here I’ve laid out some of my key learnings, and also explained how they led to the development of Pobble, an award winning approach to teaching writing.

My approach to the teaching of writing

Provide exemplar texts
I consider every writing unit to be a journey. The first step is always to look at example texts with the children. We would discuss the texts together, considering their strengths and weaknesses. We would then agree how we might reach our final destination and what a piece of writing at this final point would look like.

At the beginning of my teaching career I used to create these exemplars myself. However, in time, I began to photo-copy children’s writing and use these as my example texts. I found that the more exemplars I could share with the children for them to review and discuss, the more ideas they would introduce into their own work. By observing the children reviewing the texts I could also make quick assessments as to the key features of the text that I needed to focus my teaching on. As a class we could then discuss these features and generate success criteria together.

We initially launched the Pobble website as a simple means of sharing our exemplar texts with other teachers within our network. Rather than photocopy, we photographed our examples and posted them to the Pobble website, which we opened up to teachers anywhere.

What started out as a small initiative in a classroom in North Yorkshire has now grown into perhaps the largest online bank of children’s handwritten work in the world. We have hundreds of thousands of searchable handwritten texts sorted by age group, genre and topic and we even pick out the best examples for teachers to use as model texts. I’m proud to be regularly told that Pobble is now a “must have” for all primary teachers.

You can sign up for free access to Pobble’s bank of handwritten exemplars here.

Find a great stimulus
As well as sharing exemplars with the children I always thought carefully at the beginning of the writing journey about the stimulus needed for our writing activities. I used high quality texts, video clips, experiences (like music or sport), extracts from books and over time, lots of imagery. Finding good images was often a real challenge, particularly for creative writing. This prompted us to create Pobble 365, which introduces an inspiring image with a number of writing activities for each day of the year. Pobble 365 is now used by over 10,000 classrooms around the world every single day!

As more websites and resource providers entered the market, finding high quality resources became even more challenging and time consuming. My colleagues and I would spend hours on search engines looking for content, or we would default to our favourite websites, even though we knew they were repetitive for the children.

At Pobble we realised that we could save teachers so much time by bringing together resources from multiple providers. We surveyed our teacher community and identified the resource providers most respected by our peers. We created partnerships with those providers so teachers could search across multiple providers in one place on Pobble. This enabled teachers to build high quality lessons quicker and as a result, have more time to focus on how they might deliver their key teaching points.

Pobble’s lesson delivery tool now also includes slides designed to help teachers build a sequence of lessons, including opportunities to reflect on success criteria, learning objectives, activities and key questions. Teachers can also easily adapt their lessons based on the informal judgements they are making throughout the teaching cycle.

You can access Pobble 365 for free here.

Promote independent learning

In my experience, both as a teacher of 16 years and of working in hundreds of schools with Pobble over the last four years, the biggest challenge still facing many teachers is providing engaging writing tasks. In my classroom I used exemplar texts to drive independent analysis and learning from my pupils, and we have carefully built this into Pobble too.

Our pupil logins allow children access to the exemplars on Pobble. They can read work, not just from the child sat next to them or the WAGOLL* selected by their teacher, but from their peers from around the world. This immediately improves engagement as the children are excited to read work from beyond their school community. This also allows the children to magpie ideas and use them to improve their own work, independently, or in groups.

The children are also supported in leaving high quality, structured feedback on the work of other pupils in their class, school or from around the world. By giving children access to work from their peers which they can relate to, they are far better equipped to move forward confidently with their own piece of independent work.

*WAGOLL – what a good one looks like.

You can sign up for a webinar providing a detailed demonstration of Pobble here.

Create a purpose to write
Children need to feel like there is a real purpose for their writing. Children I have worked with have always been more inspired to write when they know their writing will be seen. This behaviour is consistent across every age group and ability that I have taught. This could be achieved through sharing work on a class display, providing opportunities to visit other classrooms, or event visiting the headteacher.

As schools began to embrace technology, opportunities emerged to share writing through school websites and pupil blogs. My last class of 39 Year 5 pupils loved blogging and were proud to have their work published each week. However, as a school leader it was a challenge to get other teachers blogging with the same enthusiasm as me.

Whilst creating Pobble I wanted to support teachers to use this type of technology whilst reducing the workload burden that it might create. For example, Pobble schools choose up to 5 children a week to be published. By limiting the amount of work published each week, not only did we reduce the additional workload from these types of activities, there was an even greater incentive for children to produce their best work. Pobble also moderates all comments on writing centrally, again reducing the burden on teachers in keeping online activities safe.

In my classroom, and later supported by Pobble, children learnt to review, edit and redraft work always producing their best piece to potentially showcase to an audience. This began to have a noticeable impact on attainment. Technology and Pobble enhanced these activities, enabling easy sharing with parents, and the creation of online portfolios of writing to support moderation.

School leaders, to find out how to use Pobble in your school, you can book a discussion with Simon here.

Facilitate teacher collaboration through assessment and moderation

When teaching in year 2 and year 6 I regularly attended local authority moderation events. These were always well attended and the LEA advisers tried hard to make them effective. However, as a relatively shy teacher, I often came away frustrated. We’d only looked at a few pieces of writing, a couple of teachers had dominated the discussion, and I wasn’t able to gather the key feedback I needed for my borderline cases. I would often drive back to school thinking about the questions I wished I had asked.

I wanted to solve this challenge by creating a more effective way of seeking feedback on assessment judgements. Through using Pobble you build up an online evidence bank of pieces of writing for your children. These can be sorted into assessment files and shared online with colleagues at any point of the year for formal or informal feedback, in or outside of the school community. This ongoing feedback increases the reliability of teachers’ assessment judgements, enabling them to make more informed judgements about a child’s end of year level. It also allows them to identify gaps in knowledge or progress for individual children on an going basis, enabling them to plan their lessons throughout the year more effectively.

If you’d like to find out about using Pobble Moderation in your school, book a discussion with Simon here.

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