The SMC Conference is back in action as a face-to-face conference in Stirling this year. There are a great range of workshops available for both primary and secondary; I know I had trouble choosing which ones I would go to for each session. Date: Saturday 20th May Time: 08:30 – 16:00 Location: University of Stirling If you’re from Highland, Craig Cormack (from Newton Park Primary School) and Sarah Leakey (formerly the Numeracy Development Officer for Highland) will be presenting at the conference. They, and other team members from the school, conducted a lesson study cycle investigating how to ..read more

As many will know, the decision was made last academic year to no longer have a council wide development officer for numeracy or literacy which meant that aspect of my job came to an end. I was fortunate that I was able to continue in post but just continuing with the schools that were part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge Schools Programme. Unfortunately, shortly before Easter, I was told that the post would not be part of the renewed Scottish Attainment Challenge funding and as such that part came to an end too and the post now ceases to exist entirely. I just wanted to write one final p ..read more

The latest issue of the Scottish Mathematical Primary Journal is out! You can access this issue (as well as previous issues) here. If you are a secondary teacher (or just want to access additional articles) then previous issues of the Scottish Mathematical Journal can be found here ..read more

Registration is now open for this year’s SMC Conference where you will find a wide range of workshops for those who are in primary, secondary or tertiary education as well as student teachers. For the second year running the event will be held online and is an absolute bargain at just £10! If you’re a student you can sign up for free! Date: Saturday 5th March Time: 09:00 – 16:30 Location: Online Registration is available via Eventbrite I look forward to seeing people there ..read more

Maths Week Scotland is upon us again – it’s always a great week and the events, resources and opportunities available during this week seem to get better and better each year. For a full run down of the events, activities and resources go to the Maths Week Scotland website. 27th September – 3rd October There are a whole host of events taking place online both within school hours and after that you can access as a class or pupils could access individually.  Click on the Events section of the website to find out more. I’ve already heard lots of schools planning what they will be doing thro ..read more

Some of the P7s at Merkinch had a go at their first Choral Count yesterday with Mrs Campbell. Choral Counts are brilliant for helping pupils to think mathematically as they explore the patterns and relationships they see within the count and also try to explain why they think those patterns happen… what’s the maths behind what they see? Take a look at the photos below to see the wonderful explosion of mathematical ideas the groups had. See if you can think of some of the reasons these patterns occur – just like the pupils did as part of their discussion. Are there any patterns that you can ..read more

We were making a few updates to some of the Highland diagnostic assessment materials towards the end of last year and these have now been finalised and I have updated the relevant materials on both the blog and the shared drive. The two assessments that were amended were Grouping and Place Value and Basic Facts.  These amendments reflect the updates that were made to the Summary Documents which would have then been used to update the Highland Numeracy Progression (if the Development Officer post had continued).  Details of the changes are outlined below. If you are using older versio ..read more

You may have noticed that it’s been a little quiet on the Highland Numeracy Blog for a while now.  Unfortunately early in Term 4 we were told that the Development Officer positions for both numeracy and literacy were being discontinued and Jenny (literacy DO) and I were moved full time over to work with the schools that are part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge Schools Programme within Highland.  Along with my colleagues, I have worked with these schools for the last 3 years and am excited to continue working with them full time however I am bitterly disappointed that the Highlan ..read more

Today we sadly bid farewell to Seonaid who has been with the team for the past two years but as the title says hopefully it’s not goodbye but see you later! Our positions are funded from various different sources and for reasons out with our control the funding that was allowing three of us to be out of class is no longer available and with a heavy heart one of us had to go back to class. I feel like the last two years have been a bit of a whirlwind and as we’ve had to write various evaluation reports over the last few weeks it’s been a good opportunity to reflect on what we’ve achieved.  ..read more

A ..read more