Teach Secondary Issue 14.7

Help their ABILITY BLOOM Christian Friday outlines his approach to building students’ confidence in maths lessons... F ailure is the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently .” Henry Ford’s words capture an important truth when encouraging pupils to believe in themselves – that each attempt brings them closer to success, and that with persistence, they will ‘get it’ in the end. My time working as a leader across multiple schools has not only allowed me to observe how teaching takes place in a range of different settings, but more importantly, how pupils can engage, flourish and sometimes avoid doing any maths at all costs. It’s a confidence issue. For me, building confidence in others must start with you. Everything you say and do has the capacity to project onto pupils, so your best arsenal for tackling low confidence is your own example, slowly chipping away over time at the negative stigma. What I offer here are three areas which I believe are vital for helping to build confidence in the classroom. Howoften dowe praise? Being a dad of two primary- age children has shownme that primary colleagues are excellent at dishing out praise, whether in the form of certificates, positive comments or stickers placed in pupils’ books. Consequently, my kids will tell us at the dinner table, “ Mrs A said I did brilliantly inmy homework, ” or, “ Two of us challengedMr B and Miss C in a Times Tables Rock Stars race during assembly, and we won! ” Now, I’mnot suggesting that you take over a Y10 assembly, fire up a couple of laptops and challenge the front row to a Pythagoras race – but do think about the kind of opportunities you can offer for recognising effort, progress and, most importantly, those pupils whose work is consistently strong every lesson. Inmy experience, most of the pupils in a class will get on with what’s expected of themwithout any fuss – and it’s often these pupils who will receive the least attention. So find opportunities for recognising these pupils. I’ve tended to find that even simple comments, like ‘ I’m really impressed with how you always attempt every question’ or ‘ It’s really clear howmuch pride you take in your work ’ go a long way. Think about what ‘success’ might look like for the pupil or class in front of you. For some, it might entail being more consistent in their basic numerical skills. For others, it might be finding the perseverance to tackle a multistage problem in a methodical way. There are times when I have to make difficult phone calls home. However, I always endeavour to make a number of positive calls to parents, too. I might sometimes only be on the phone for less than a couple of minutes, but there’s nothing better than hearing the pleasure in a parent’s voice after you’ve acknowledged the efforts and dedication of their child. It produces a feel-good factor for you as well, and makes for an uplifting end to a busy day or week. Even as adults, we still love nothing more than some positive recognition – so let’s project some of that onto others too! Misconceptions – classroomculture or taboo? As maths teachers, I believe we’ve become much better at addressing misconceptions. But how often is this able to develop into a classroom or departmental culture in which pupils feel safe to make mistakes? After all, misconceptions are embedded throughout the curriculum. Some of the best teaching I’ve ever seen is where a pupil offers a solution to a problem presented on the class board that is incorrect – immediately followed by the teacher lighting up and seeing this as the perfect opportunity to address a commonmisconception. A basic example of this could be finding the area of a circle, with a diameter denoted on the diagram, resulting in a simple input error when using the formula. Imagine a response that sounds something like this: “ Even though the answer isn’t correct on this occasion, I was really hoping someone would give this answer, because this is the number one mistake people make, and probably 50% of the class will have made it. Can anyone in the class identify where the misconception might be? ” There are a plethora of ways to go about this. We could deliberately make a mistake when writing a solution on the board and wait for someone to pick up on it. We can demonstrate howwe all make mistakes – yes, even if we’re a teacher. Or we could arrive at the final modelled solution, and say to the class, “ Can anyone spot any possible steps inmy solution which are vulnerable to mistakes? ” If the process of identifying misconceptions becomes a regular routine in your classroom, pupils will become more and more confident in telling you what they’re thinking. “Thinkabout the kind ofopportunities you can offer for recognising effort andprogress” 66 teachwire.net/secondary