GCSE maths, City of Bristol College
Sometimes we have to do something way out of our comfort zone - and then we actually come out smiling. Just ask GCSE maths teacher Emma Richer . . .
The students
Allen Onyia, Jasmine Ibrahim and Taylor Wilkins all passed GCSE maths this summer
Allen: Emma taught me how to understand, focus, concentrate and be confident and, most importantly, how to do revision constantly and increasingly. I remember once asking her a question and she replied: “I believe you have an 80% likelihood of passing your exams; it’s now up to you to improve and to develop your learning.” From then on I started focusing and improving every day in the class. Thanks for making a difference for me.
Jasmine: I was in Emma’s classes for three years and she was always so helpful; every time I felt I was going to fail she’d be there for me and everyone else in the class. She had loads of patience and I always found it easy to talk to her about what I found difficult to understand. I once faced problems outside college and brought them into class, yet Emma would always understand. She told me she’d always be there if I needed help; she’s just such a warm person and teacher.
Taylor: I really struggled but Emma would explain things in a way that made it much easier for me and my peers to understand. She has this amazing skill of being able to tailor her explanations to the needs of each individual student. Once during the course, I was wrestling with a topic and I remember Emma sitting down with me to help me understand how to work out and answer the questions. She’s a great teacher.
The lecturer
Learning 30 new students’ names in your first lesson and then greeting each student by name in the next takes some doing. But maths GCSE specialist Emma Richer does this every year.
“Students generally don’t want to be in a maths resit lesson - it doesn’t matter what day of the week it is - so I counter this by spending time getting to know them personally, building relationships and learning their names from day one.”
In what she views as a slightly embarrassing but foolproof method, she forms her hands into a small ‘frame’ through which she views a student’s face. She then asks the student for their name and keeps repeating the name, while staring through her fingers and walking round the class!
Slowly build up your knowledge of each student
“I rarely forget a name but if I do I merely apologise and ask again. Then I’ll make an extra effort to find out about them and use that to make amends! So it could be: ‘How’s your dog?’ when I talk to them in their next lesson.
“I slowly build up my knowledge of each student and let them know a bit about myself, like the fact that I too had to resit my maths GCSE, that I will make mistakes - it’s hard writing on the board and talking at the same time with a lot of other things going on in your head. I tell them they are my checkers - we all make mistakes so they must pull me up on mine. It makes it easier for them to see that everyone makes errors and to be comfortable with sharing ideas with each other.”
Emma says her students are often too embarrassed to say what they think even though many have an answer to her questions. She now uses mini whiteboards, which takes pressure off the students who just write down their answers on their own boards which they then hold up to enable the teacher to rapidly assess their understanding. “The whiteboards are an absolute saving grace - all my students submit answers.”
Mini whiteboards are a key feedback tool in maths
Feedback from the whiteboards allows her to address any misconceptions as a whole class event. “I may have just two learners who don’t understand something but they and the rest of the class won’t know they are the only two, and I find that quite empowering as a teacher.”
She uses many of the methods to engage learners cited in the book, Teach Like a Champion, her ‘toolbox of techniques’. She also uses the Fermi questioning technique, first used by the 20th-century Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi. The resources website, @TeacherToolkit, says such questions encourage ‘creative thinking, involving different solution strategies. They promote a range of problem-solving skills requiring students to be logical and inventive.’ Students like Fermi-style questions because they cover ‘open-ended problems, have no exact answer or definite solution, but are interesting and motivating’.
What’s a typical Fermi question? Try ‘How many Rubik’s cubes could you fit inside a double-decker bus?’ or ‘How many people would it take to surround our school if they held hands?’
Breaking down barriers to maths learning
Emma says she tries to break down barriers to maths learning among her students, many of whom are either scared, bored, disinterested or disaffected. “They may have been told they are not very good at maths, or that it’s ok not to be good at maths.
“Students also often ask why I’m always so positive, so happy… I reply that if I’m miserable and they’re in my lesson where they don’t want to be, they won’t want to come back again!”
Emma aims to be upbeat about maths - not a quality she’s always associated with the subject which she’d never planned to teach. She qualified as a primary teacher at the University of the West of England, where she stayed on as a students’ union official for a couple of years before starting a family, supply teaching, and becoming a playgroup leader. “I was then asked if I’d give training to parents at City of Bristol College which led on to a permanent position at the college. I also did some health and social care teaching before being asked to cover for a maths lesson. I said ‘No, I can’t’ but my manager told me I had to do it. I duly covered the lesson - and loved it!
Nothing better than winning over a student with attitude
“It was a real eye-opener, I saw a need for childcare learners to have more maths in mainstream lessons as well as additional maths lessons. It piqued my interest and I retrained to teach maths up to GCSE level and latterly level 3 core maths.”
Starting out in maths teaching was a bit scary, Emma recalls. “I was petrified that everyone knew more than me because I realised that when I was 16 I didn’t know a lot of the content I now had to teach. I accrued the knowledge through university and class teaching, although it took me three years to feel really confident teaching GCSE maths and to realise I did know what I was talking about.
“I’ve now been teaching maths full-time for around five years, mostly to 16-18s. I like building connections with young people and coming across individuals with attitude - it’s very satisfying when you win them over and they start engaging with you and treating you as a human being rather than just a teacher! Some won’t look me in the eye at the start of the one-year course but give it a few weeks and we can be holding a two-way, peer-to-peer conversation about maths.”
Twitter is a fount of new ideas
If you are considering teaching maths, see someone teaching it first, Emma advises. “The maths teaching community is so supportive on platforms such as Twitter and through organisations like the Education Training Foundation, Association of Colleges and the Chartered College of Teaching. Good ideas often pop up on Twitter and I try them out with my learners.
“It’s not all about success rates and passing exams,” she points out, “though it is for the students, and I get that. It’s also about breaking down individuals’ barriers to maths learning, changing their attitudes. And sometimes that takes more than just one year’s course; I might teach the same students for two consecutive years and then they’ll pass.
“Ask yourself if you actually like young people - if you don’t know, ask to observe a class, walk round a college. If you’ve never taught before, it can be all-consuming for a while but don’t be put off. Give it a go - you never know, you might end up loving it like I do!"