Jemma Sherwood

DIY SOS, David.

I walked past Nick Knowles in a corridor.

YouTube video by Bernie Westacott Maths Jemma Algebra V1

Jemma @jemmaths.bsky.social did such a great thread on Twitter in 2022 that I wanted to put it together and share it with teachers. You can pause it wherever you want for individual or group discussion. Not new but worth a repost. youtu.be/YBx1rcPjuck?...

Thanks Bernie! Given my account there is now gone, this is nice to see :)

Hat tips for my latest gems post! 🎩

Thanks to @harryzafar.bsky.social @hannahkettlemaths.bsky.social @1stclassmaths.bsky.social

My account’s deactivated now. I thought I’d be more bothered. Turns out the nostalgia for a better time had already passed and I feel much better knowing I’m out.

Thanks, Harry. So glad you’re still getting use from them 👍👍

In #MathsToday I've been using the OAT Maths resources to teach Circle Theorems to year 11. Finding them fantastic for scaffolding and supporting student understanding

The maths Conf session back in June from @jemmaths.bsky.social was a great introduction to using the resources

Student: FP1 and D1
Teacher: FP1 and FM1

Christmas colouring picture featuring Santa, reindeer and trees.

A sample of further maths questions.

My extra Further mathematics Christmas Calculated Colouring for 2025 is now available on my website. This has some year 2 content in the questions.. My 2024 and 2019 ones are pretty much just Year 12 depending on SOWs etc. Link: blog.drbennisonmaths.com/blog/2025/12... #ALevelMaths

Add to that a bit of dynamic geometry and dynamic graphing software to demo what hand-drawing never quite can, but that’s about it.

The best bit of Edtech for my subject is a mini-whiteboard (mainly because we don’t need prose in maths). Check every child can do every step all at once? Respond in the moment to their errors? Yes please.

1. Thread.
Ed tech and the best lesson I taught this year.
The best Ed tech in the world for my subject is a book.
It is the ideal delivery method because the effort of concentrating on it helps people learn what's in it.

That’s a work of art :)

Worked hard on a big revision of my risps. Weeding out mistakes, making tasks clearer, writing Geogebra and Excel files, all with better navigation; look out for the free eBook coming out in January!

If you ever think English is not a weird language just remember that read and lead rhyme and read and lead rhyme.

But read and lead don't rhyme, and neither do read and lead.

By that, I don’t think that PU+CU=U because CU doesn’t feel that discrete.

There could be a useful distinction to “procedural understanding” *if* you define that to mean “I know how to do this procedure reliably”. In this case, CU conveys something more which is absent from PU. But I think I agree, probably PU is a subset of U in a way that CU is not.

Absolutely right. Doesn’t help that it’s poorly defined (and differently defined) throughout the literature. But the current conflation of “multiple representations” with “conceptual understanding” that I keep seeing is frustrating.

Always happy to chat maths!

Language and vocabulary in a maths classroom This post comprises a couple of excerpts from the book, Succeeding as a Maths Teacher, by Caroline Kennedy, Amie Meek, Emma Weston and me. Language (from Chp. 1) The language we use in the classroo…

There’s a really old post on vocab/language here jemmaths.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/t... and something more recent here jemmaths.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/l...

I suggest that attempting to teach mathematics without training pupils to speak mathematically through all our interactions and activities is self-sabotage.

then get them to answer questions which check and embed their understanding of the word. And then keep making them use it in sentences. Lots of things that make it a normal part of their vocabulary.

A definition quickly becomes wordy and hard for a child - learning the word for the first time - to process. Much better to show examples and non-examples to exemplify the word, then get pupils to rehearse the word with a choral response so it’s actually on *their* lips, …

I actually don’t think that writing down definitions has any value. I think a defn only makes sense once you have good knowledge of the thing, so you’re better to build familiarity and knowledge of the word, always. Writing defns is busy work.

For something like choral response the “why” I find lands well is when you explain that in most lessons, the person who practises saying the new, unfamiliar word lots is the person for whom it’s neither new nor unfamiliar.

So the big question is why aren’t staff into it. Is it because they don’t understand the purpose? Is it because it’s hard to change habits? Something else?

Buy in from whom: staff or pupils?

I enjoyed doing that one, but it wasn’t obvious.

I’m not aware of anything to get your teeth into. Could chatter about it at length, but not sure where there’s reading. Sorry!