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Mark Dawes

@mdawesmdawes.bsky.social

920 followers 840 following 330 posts

I teach maths and play music. Runner since Feb 2016. Y aprendo español. Creator of Quibans for Core Maths. https://quibans.blogspot.com/ Based near Cambridge, UK

quibans.blogspot.com

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Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · 6h

Half marathon in Surrey today. 'The Hurt' was well named (not used to all the hills). But lots of fun.

Steep uphill track in Hurtwood Forest near Guildford.

Half Marathon race number and medal.

Reposted by Mark Dawes

Catriona Agg @catrionaagg.bsky.social · 3d

In #MathsToday I made 40 A Level teachers colour in representations of the binomial distribution.

This is your regular reminder that if you teach #ALevelMaths you should definitely try to join your local Maths Hub’s A Level Pedagogy group. There is some brilliant stuff going on all over England.

A quartet of representations of the binomial distributions. Screenshots from https://www.desmos.com/calculator/3ea50eafbc

X ~B (10, 0.4)
Shade the diagrams to represent the probability
P(3 ≤X <6)
and draw a numberline.

X~B(10,0.4)
Shade the diagrams to represent the probability P(3 ≤ X < 6) and draw a
numberline.

X ~ B(8, 0.7)
Which is larger:
P(X < 5) or P(X = 6)?

X~B(12,0.36)
P(X ≥ c) < 0.5
What is the smallest possible value of c?

X~B(10,0.4)
Calculate the interquartile range of this distribution.
What is the mode?

X~B(8, 0.7)
P(X ≤ a) < 0.1
What is the largest possible value of a?
P(X ≥ b) < 0.1
What is the smallest possible value of b?

X~B(12,0.36)
P(X ≤ a) < 0.2
What is the largest possible value of a?
P(X ≥ b) < 0.2
What is the smallest possible value of b?

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · 15d

In #MathsToday (in fact, #MathsRightNow at the #RyderCup ), the official website shows the state of play and also gives predicted percentages for each possible result in each match.
Any comments on the predictions?

Ryder Cup 2025: Day 1, afternoon session, match 4 of the four-balls.
Burns and Cantlay (USA) are playing McIlroy and Lowry (Europe).
After 7 completed holes, Europe are 2 up.
The predicted outcome bar has a 60% chance of Europe winning the match (after 18 holes), a 15% of a halved hole and a 25% chance of USA winning.

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Aug 15

How would the meaning of the question be any different if they left out the word "mathematically"?

Reposted by Mark Dawes

Tommaths (he/him) 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @teakayb.mathsy.space · Jul 29

If you *were* interested, a really good thing you could do is follow me in case I announce something.

Also, it would only work if a good core of enthusiastic folk from both teams engaged with it, so sharing this post would let more people know about it.

Tommaths (he/him) 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @teakayb.mathsy.space · Jul 29

If there were such a thing as an email discussion group aimed at giving #history #teachers and #maths teachers (mainly secondary) somewhere to discuss the history of maths and the maths of history with a view to exploring each subject in the other's lessons...

... who would join it?

#MathsToday 🏛️🎓

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jul 23

@teachertapp.bsky.social sent me this.
Scary to realise hope much time I have spent on the app.
There are 1440 mins in a day. So if I have spent a minute each day Tapping then that's more than a full day in total. (Not that this realisation will make me stop, obvs!)

An image showing a 2,000 day streak on Teacher Tapp, with the number inside a shield that is on fire.

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jul 22

Me too!
I knew I had blogged about this a while back. Didn't realise it was over a dozen years ago!
morethansums.blogspot.com/2013/03/roug...

I am getting my grump in early so I can batten down the hatches, pull my scarf up around my neck and grit my teeth when everyone else gets...

morethansums.blogspot.com

Reposted by Mark Dawes

Caroline Derbyshire @morsecat.bsky.social · Jul 18

www.tes.com/magazine/lea...

‘Thanks, teaching’: a love letter after a 36-year relationship

As she prepares to retire after almost four decades, MAT leader and former teacher Caroline Derbyshire pens a thank-you letter to a profession that has given her so much

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jul 22

What a lovely article - and a fitting way to sign off.
All the best for the future, and congratulations for everything you have achieved.

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 15

Bank of England inflation website gives a general inflation multiplier of 2.89 for the same period.
(So fees of £3000 in 1986 would be 3000 x 2.89 = £8670 in 2024.)
Is there a reason for the massive discrepancy?
(Genuine question. I don't want to misrepresent this, but don't understand it!)

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 15

The @telegraphnews.bsky.social keeps using this graph showing private school fee increases.
According to their figures, from 1986 to 2024 (ignoring the 2025 increase) school fees have multiplied by 9.6
(so fees of £3000 in 1986 would be 3000 x 9.6 = £28,000 in 2024).
/1

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 15

[Obvs, not all A-level students realised this. I recall a student who used to copy out the mark scheme from past papers and hand it in. Even including 'oe' as part of his answers! I explained how pointless it was for me to mark the mark-scheme, but that didn't deter him. He got a U.]

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 15

Have I just got a naive/rose-tinted view of how things were pre-AI? Or do we just need to convince pupils that the same is true with AI?

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 15

This is key.
It would have been possible just to copy down the answers from the back of the book. Did pupils do that? Maybe some of them did. At A-level there was certainly no point, because students (should) want to understand and (should) realise that copying the answers doesn't help with that.

Austin Foote @mathsteach.bsky.social · Jun 15

And then we flicked to the back of the book and marked our own.

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 13

It was very useful to see this on BlueSky. This email was rejected by the spam filter on the school email system. I have now had messages from ATM unblocked, so will receive messages immediately in future. (And I managed to get hold of this one too.)
I hope that hasn't happened to other members.

Association of Teachers of Mathematics @atmmathematics.bsky.social · Jun 11

Members should have received an invitation to an EGM via email today.
The email also contains further details about the voting process for the integration of the current organisations and the launch of a new organisation.

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 6

New blog on the @cambridgemathshub.bsky.social website.

Might be of interest to primary and secondary maths teachers.
#mathstoday
www.cambridgemathshub.org/post/how-to-...

How to carry out calculations crisply

By Mark Dawes, June 2025 Here is a 3-mark question from the 2025 KS2 mathematics SATS, paper 3:The mark scheme gives all three marks for the correct answer, and suggests that this involves long multip...

www.cambridgemathshub.org

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 3

Hi @atmmathematics.bsky.social
What's the state of play regarding ATM and the formation of AMiE?

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Jun 2

Great to hear!

Alex J-W @alexjw.bsky.social · Jun 2

Can now announce I will be starting a new job as maths ks5 lead it Parrs Wood school in sep!

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · May 30

Nice to see the word "puzzles" is plural here.
Looking forward to more of them!

Reposted by Mark Dawes

The Maths Bazaar @themathsbazaar.bsky.social · Apr 30

3 easy steps to get Casio fx-CG100 emulator

1) set up Casio Classpad account
classpad.net/intl/
2) visit education.casio.co.uk/emulator/?cl... to register
3) paste the licence code into your account on this page, and it will be added to the list of available calculators

Feel free to ask for help

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Apr 30

Your question seems to me to be a 3D(-ish) version of this.
On a globe, draw the circumference of the earth that is equidistant from Boston and Miami. Then repeat for the other pairs of cities.
Make a Voronoi-type diag, then transfer this to a map.
I reckon your version is plausible.
Any use?

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Apr 30

Lovely question!
On a flat surface with dots on it, we can find the regions that are closest to each of the dots. This is a Voronoi diagram (in IB, but not A-level maths). To do this we draw the straight lines equidistant between a point and its neighbours and make the regions by using these lines.

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Apr 29

I try to use these as short activities. I want the students to try to understand what the graphs mean, how they work, what they are showing, and to critique any errors and maybe suggest improvements.
There are notes for the teacher to use if you wish.
My classes have trialled these!

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Apr 29

Hey #CoreMaths teachers. I have updated the "What the Graph" website with 7 new graphs (I have used them in #MathsToday over the past term!)
whatthegraph.weebly.com

This site includes screenshots of graphs that are likely to require some interpretation! They might be complicated, unhelpful or just plain bizarre. There will be a few articles about how they...

whatthegraph.weebly.com

Mark Dawes @mdawesmdawes.bsky.social · Apr 28

If you can't turn it upside down and get it to display ShELLOIL then what's the point?