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📝 Weekly Report #31

It's been a bit of a mad first week back this term. Stress levels are high with the year 11s and 13s very close to their exams. For them lessons have been revising the advance information topics. 

One of the issues I've found with the A level Maths is that students are often unsure what the questions are actually asking them to do.  A strategy I have been using is goal free problems. If you're unsure what they are take a look at the following website.

The basic idea is that I'm giving students just the description and perhaps a diagram and ask them to just work stuff out. I find it particularly effective for topics within Mechanics especially. 

Initially students struggled with what to do as to they wanted a target to aim for. After doing it for a little while now they are finding it really useful and are often calculating values to hat is beyond what the question actually was. They are making generalities with topics and styles of questions and have massively improved their confidence in tackling exam questions. 

I look forward to seeing how this plays out for them in their exams and it's something that I'm going to continue to use especially with A level classes as they already have very strong prior knowledge. 

📚 Read:
Scott Youngs post on how to practice effectively using a See, Do, Feedback model. Think this is particularly appropriate for training and coaching with teachers. Read more here 

🔊 Listen:
Alex Sanderson, Sale Sharks Head Coach, on the High Performance Podcast. For him, the most important aspect of bing a leader is having empathy and understanding the people you work with. He also mentions how he feels we should be spending more time training our mental abilities not just our physical ones. Have a listen here. 

🔊 Listen: 
PiXL Pearl - Blackberry, highlighting the need to have a different mindset depending on your door and the need to constantly evolve rather than being stuck in your own ways. Listen here. 


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