James Handscombe

Chapter Four: British Politics from the first election I remember to the first one I could vote in covering a small boy’s growing interest in what was going on in the world from the Falklands and the miner’s strike to the fall of Thatcher.

We’ve come up to see the castle and blow the cobwebs away.

In Northern France (Noyelles-sur-mer) there’s a medium sized war grave mainly filled with Chinese labourers who were brought over to dig trenches and then died of flu in 1918/19. Truly was a world war.

Amazing little church in a speck of a village

Mostly meningitis, it seems.

So many war graves in the Wiltshire countryside. Not repatriated (only three bodies from WW1 were brought home) - so I think it must be killed on exercise on Salisbury plain?
Does anyone know?

Atmospherically lit for Hallowe’en

All the better!

Chapter Three is the Paleolithic. Less whimsy, more three million years of human(ish) history starting with Olduvai Gorge and finishing with the Venus of Hohle Fels. Fans of the Flintstones will be disappointed to learn that there are no dinosaurs to be seen (except for birds).

The relevant page isn't quite hidden in a locked filing cabinet behind a door labelled "Beware of the leopard", but it's not going to win a Plain English award either.

Yes, but exams have to be exams.
It’s a problem.

Philip Larkin’s this be the verse mangled into Ozymandias, the text reads They Oz you up, your mandyias. They may not mean to, but they do. They give you vast and trunkless legs A sunken shattered visage too. But they were Ozzed up in their turn By Mandyias upon the sand Who half the time had wrinkled lips And half in sneering cold command. Oz hands on mandyias to man. Like mighty works atop a shelf Look on them early as you can Ye mighty and despair yourself

Yes - team challenge is an interesting one.

Yes - we ruminated that sixth-forms make similar complaints about GCSE students and profs complain that their new graduate students are the same.
It's something intrinsic to maths getting harder and more open-ended and students gaining maturity.
We might still be able to help, though.

Is this Y11s?

Universities say they see students unused to being presented with problems they don't know how to start and unable to keep trying when stuck - they quickly give up (bad)/ run for help (better).
I see this - we teach them to spot the type of problem/ approach required and long questions are 18 marks.

Yes - I like the SMC - I'm not quite sure where it sits. The problem with the format is there's little scope for being stuck: students are challenged with harder problems and so get better at maths but do they come out more confident about not being able to do them?

2) Do you do anything to develop mathematical confidence in your most able - particularly thinking about confidence to get stuck, not know how to get started, get things wrong and work through problems to a (sometimes) solution?
#MathsToday
#UkEd
#EdSky

#MathsToday
#UkEd
Calling Maths Teachers!
I'm doing a project on transition to university. Two questions
1) Do you do anything to address the differences in competences students have post 18 (so not trying to get them better for exams, but getting them to fix gaps they had in those exams)?

Chapter Two introduces the geographical regions of Switzenstein and San Italican but focuses on the ideas of Leonhard Euler in classifying orientable two-dimensional surfaces. The reader is invited to grab a sharpie and get involved (always seek parental permission before drawing on the furniture).

New homes: even if you build them, there’s no one to buy them We’re often told housing demand exceeds supply — so why are new homes struggling to be built and bought?

In other news, I really don’t understand the housing market:
www.ft.com/content/9080...

Chapter One contains the first of five great mathematical jokes and the overarching structure of modeling curiosity, inspiring curiosity, expecting curiosity (I elide the introduction and its comparison of Toynbee and Rudge mostly because I like to elide things).

It’s really fun, isn’t it!

That explains why medicinal raspberry cordial has such a transformative effect!

Disappointingly little Welsh mythology* (although the Greeks get a fleeting mention).

*This is the review I’m looking for: “Four stars - disappointingly little Welsh mythology”

It has been said (not very often, and mostly after several pints)

Just over a week until publication of my new book on the joys and power of curiosity - the perfect gift for someone interested in maths or politics or archaeology or physics or art or poetry - also ideal for anyone not yet interested in those things who should be.

Jack likes you as much as he likes anyone. We think. Hard to tell.

Jack’s Pool is excellent (Jack is my favourite, though he doesn’t care for me).
Nicely put together and the Willerby bounce sounding on point.

I think that’s a couple of thousand years after the pyramids (at least Archimedes is).