taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor
@taylorda01.bsky.social
500 followers 480 following 98 posts
Maths educator (2008) Former world's youngest person (1986) Amateur golfer (13.0)
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · 10d
I've also added some links to the Backward Faded Exam Papers page. AQA's Example-Problem Past Papers and Pearson have added something called Model-Solve Exam Practice Pairs. They look familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · 10d
I've just spent a little time adding some content to taylorda01.weebly.com, specifically on the 'Stories' page (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, remarkable prime numbers, a festive activity, Frobenius numbers, and Lagrange's Four Square Theorem).

Any more to be added?
@TAYLORDA01
Date: May '25 Having had a year out of the classroom as Head of Curriculum for Maths at AQA, I am back in the saddle and enjoying the challenge and opportunity that young people provide on a daily...
taylorda01.weebly.com
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 31
4/4. The last blog for this weekend is up at taylorda01.weebly.com

This one looks at The End of The Lesson.

Happy School Year's Eve!
@TAYLORDA01
Date: May '25 Having had a year out of the classroom as Head of Curriculum for Maths at AQA, I am back in the saddle and enjoying the challenge and opportunity that young people provide on a daily...
taylorda01.weebly.com
taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 30
The hat trick has landed. Following on from 'The Start of The Lesson' and 'Just After The Start of The Lesson', I've just blogged about 'The Lesson' at taylorda01.weebly.com

I hope you're all as excited as I am about getting back to teaching this week!
@TAYLORDA01
Date: May '25 Having had a year out of the classroom as Head of Curriculum for Maths at AQA, I am back in the saddle and enjoying the challenge and opportunity that young people provide on a daily...
taylorda01.weebly.com
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 29
Yesterday I posted a blog at taylorda01.weebly.com called The Start of The Lesson, considering routines for the coming academic year.

I've just followed it up with another - Just After The Start of The Lesson.
@TAYLORDA01
Date: May '25 Having had a year out of the classroom as Head of Curriculum for Maths at AQA, I am back in the saddle and enjoying the challenge and opportunity that young people provide on a daily...
taylorda01.weebly.com
taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 29
Changing rooms between each lesson is crazy! I lived it for a while, and wouldn't like to go back to it.
taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 29
Thank you :)
taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 29
My new role starts on Monday. That came around fast.

I've been thinking about transitions between lessons recently and blogged about 'The Start of The Lesson' at taylorda01.weebly.com

Enjoy the final weekend of the summer holidays!
@TAYLORDA01
Date: May '25 Having had a year out of the classroom as Head of Curriculum for Maths at AQA, I am back in the saddle and enjoying the challenge and opportunity that young people provide on a daily...
taylorda01.weebly.com
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
I agree when it comes to exams, and preparation for actual exams, but (in my opinion) if there are significant parts of a question that a learner can't attempt, teach them that content before setting the question.
taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
I'm not sure about that. Maths doesn't have 16 markers and questions aren't designed in the same way.

In mocks and exams, I'm all for that, but with exam practise definitely not.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
I don't dislike this, but I can't help feel that the other questions are a waste of paper, as they're unlikely to return to them when they have been taught them.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong. Mrs Taylor tells me that a lot, so I could be wrong!
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
This is my uncertainty. I definitely think they need to be amended for content with Y10, and there are ways to do so to maintain accuracy with grades, but then do Y10 need exam paper practice prior to this? That would also need to be amended.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
It was clear.

The domain-specific stuff comes first in my mind, and has to in order to actually have methods to answer questions.
The method selection, switching between topics, comes later when learners have methods to choose from.

I'm not sure how late, though.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
I think the method selection comes later. You can't select which method to use if you don't have a variety of methods to choose from.

How much later, I'm not sure.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
There are a number of banks of questions, both paid and unpaid, that you can use to collate focused worksheets. As a proud Yorkshireman I'd be going unpaid, creating a 2 by 2 table on a landscape Word document, and giving 4 or 8 questions regularly instead of full papers.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
Organising staffed in-school sessions for past papers, providing video walk-throughs or example-problem past papers will provide learners with some support, but those questions assessing content that they haven't learnt yet isn't as helpful as a high success rate.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
Replace past papers with domain-specific exam practise - topic tests, or putting together sets of questions from past papers - based on topics recently taught to give exam practise with high expectations, providing learners with success that they can build on.
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
I understand, and agree, that familiarity with exam papers is important, but I think that familiarity with exam questions is more important than with full papers until quite late in the year.
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
Those kids who just got 34 out of 100 in their Year 10 mock were not ready for a full paper, and the summer wasn't magically transformative in terms of their understanding of maths.
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 24
As the dust settles after results day and the focus of leadership teams returns to the coming academic year, I think it's natural that much of this focus sits with year 11. But if there's one thing I think we get wrong with Y11, it's giving unsupported exam practise.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 3
A departmental policy of using pre-determined questions at the beginning of the lesson, and (as Sam said) it means that the latecomers don't miss out on the most important bit - the retrieval aspect of learning content.
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taylorda01.bsky.social
Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 3
Doing it on MWBs means they could get immediate feedback.

I'm thinking of a 'last five minutes' routine, switching books over for the next lesson and put the retrieval questions on while I do so.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 3
Not printing them, though. MWB work, or on sticky notes if I feel I need to collect them.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Aug 3
There's a large emphasis on performance, but I'm thinking of getting into the exit ticket game for retrieval instead of content delivered during that lesson.
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Dave Taylor @taylorda01.bsky.social · Jul 31
Howz-stat?!

Incredible opportunity to explore this in lessons.
Have everyone stand up and toss a coin. Students call it, and sit down if they get it right.

How many coin tosses until everyone is sat down?
robeastaway.bsky.social
Rob Eastaway @robeastaway.bsky.social · Jul 31
India's captain has called the toss incorrectly 15 times in a row.
What are the chances?
1 in 2^15, that's 1 in 32,768. Surely this is the worst run of luck in cricket history. #ENGvsIND
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