Teacher, author and podcaster Ollie Lovell joins the host to discuss connections, worked examples, teacher knowledge, iPads, timer dice, and rewards for revision.

Experienced heads of department, Femi Adeniran and Matt Findlay, join me for an epic conversation about leading a maths department. We cover everything from consistency versus autonomy, departmental meetings, handling parental complaints and allocating sets. You can access links to the resources discussed, time-stamps and videos on the podcast show-notes page here: https://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/168-how-to-lead-a-maths-department-with-femi-adeniran-and-matt-findlay/ Time-stamps: Matt's favourite failure (06:26) Femi's favourite failure (10:38) Matt's route into becoming a head of department (15:45) Femi's route into becoming a head of department (18:17) How many year's classroom teaching should you have before becoming a head of department? (21:02) How strong a teacher does the head of department need to be? (24:41) What does your timetable as a head of department look like? (28:43) Do you find you are teaching more these days than 5 years ago? (32:38) Does your teaching suffer with all the other things you have to give attention to? (40:00) How does your workload compare to a teacher with a full time-table? (46:39) How often would you be pulled out of a lesson to deal with something? (52:13) How do you balance the need for consistency across your department with a desire for teacher autonomy? (56:46) What are the non-negotiables that members of your team have to follow? (1:32:54) What do your departmental meetings look like? (1:57:13) How do you ensure good practice is shared around the department? (2:21:51) How do you support less experienced colleagues, non-specialists, those who are struggling? (2:23:16) How do you deal with directives from SLT that you don't agree with? (2:41:26) What do you do to help non-specialists (particularly SLT) understand what the characteristics of high-quality T&L in maths are? (2:48:37) How do you deal with difficult members of the department who are reluctant the make changes? (2:54:59) How do you deal with parental complaints? (3:00:48) How do you allocate teaching sets? (3:05:19) Final reflections (3:19:37) Craig's takeaways (3:32:42)

Teacher, author and my arch-rival podcaster, Ollie Lovell, joins me from the land Down Under in the second of our monthly chats. We each share three things we have been thinking about from the world of education recently. In this episode, we discuss reasons students don't understand things, behaviour, copying things down, and more! For show notes, videos and links please visit this page: mrbartonmaths.com/blog/tools-and-tips-for-teachers-2 Time-stamps: Three reasons students don’t know the answer (06:06) Three reflections on behaviour in schools (19:22) Develop competing hypotheses when observing teaching and learning (37:11) Further thoughts on the Myth of Copying Things Down (47:19) Rethinking To-Do Lists (1:06:13) End the day on a positive (1:16:24)

Teacher, author and my arch-rival podcaster, Ollie Lovell, joins me from the land Down Under in the first of our monthly chats. We each share three things we have been thinking about from the world of education recently. In this first episode, we discuss checking for understanding, curriculum, PowerPoint and more! For show notes, videos and links please visit this page: mrbartonmaths.com/blog/tools-and-tips-for-teachers-1/ Time-stamps: The crucial role of curriculum (05:18) No hints before a check for understanding (14:19) Diagnosis in coaching (24:12) The Tick Trick (39:29) The power of a slideshow for teaching mathematics (45:32) How to get better sleep (59:24)

Peps McCrea makes his third appearance on the podcast, this time to take a deep dive into how we can be more evidence-informed as teachers. We discuss his process for identifying and summarising key research finds, and then discuss some key pieces of research and their implication for the classroom. I learned so much from this one. For links to the resources discussed in the episode and videos of our conversation please visit the episode show-notes page here: https://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/how-to-be-more-evidence-informed-with-peps-mcrea/ Time-stamps How does Peps find good quality research to share with teachers? (08:44) How does Peps summarise research so teachers can quickly digest and apply it? (14:29) What is a piece of research we both believe in, but wish was not true? (21:53) Willpower is overrated (48:20) Consistency before challenge (59:26) Interruptions leave a wake (1:07:04) Mind your modes (1:12:47) What's happening in AI right now, and what does it mean for education? (1:23:33) Coaching chat! (1:37:23) Peps' new book (1:49:58) My takeaways (1:51:57)

In this episode I talk to fellow maths teacher, Craig Latimir, about his process for planning a lesson... and it takes us 3 hours. But this is one of my favourite conversations I have had on the podcast. It should be useful whatever your level of teaching experience, but particularly useful for those n the early stages of their career. I wish I had had someone like Craig to stop me from making so many planning errors in the early days! For resources and videos from this episode just follow this link: mrbartonmaths.com/blog/how-to-plan-a-maths-lesson Useful time-stamps: Craig and I discuss our past lesson planning crimes (15:01) Craig shares his key principles for lesson planning (22:45) Craig tells us the first thing he thinks about when planning (52:18) Craig discusses how he plans and delivers the Do Now (57:18) Then the exposition (1:20:37) Then modelling (1:29:04) Then how he questions and checks for understanding (1:44:32) Then how he responds to those checks (1:59:56) Then the practice phase (2:08:00) And finally the end of the lesson (2:16:15) I begin my reflection on all I learned from Craig (2:55:36)

Science teacher and author, Adam Boxer, joins me to discuss his process for observing colleagues teach and then giving them feedback. Adam's approach - which he calls the Hypoesis model - has been hugely influential on my own observation and coaching process, and it was great to discuss it in depth. Adam is a smart guy! For links, resources and videos, please visit the show-notes page here: https://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/how-to-observe-a-lesson/

Jamie Thom interviewed me for his excellent Beyond Survival podcast - a show aimed at supporting new teachers. Jamie asked me to share five tips that I thought would benefit those teachers new to the classroom. Here is what I came up with: The importance of boosting the participation ratio Respecting both types of wait time Improving paired discussion Embracing Learner-generated examples Asking students to assign confidence scores to their work You can listen to more episodes of Beyond Survival here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/beyond-survival-the-new-teacher-podcast/id1643514835  My own Tips for Teachers podcast is here: https://tipsforteachers.co.uk/podcast/  You can find out about my Tips for Teachers book here: https://tipsforteachers.co.uk/book/ 

Here are the links to the things discussed in the show: Tips for Teachers website Tips for Teachers podcast Tips for Teachers newsletter Tips for Teachers book Online and face-to-face CPD and departmental support Three Tips for Teachers episodes to check out: Jamie Thom Sammy Kempner Craig Latimir The Mr Barton Maths Podcast will be back soon!

Ollie Lovell is a maths teacher from sunny Australia. He is also a head of department, blogger, research ravager, pioneering podcaster, and best-selling author. He joins me to discuss the key ideas from his book: Tools for Teachers. We focus on two key areas: regulation & relationships, and leadership. Ollie offers his usual dose of practical, actionable takeaways that any teacher can try. For more information about today’s guest, plus links to the websites, resources and ideas they mention, please visit the show notes page: http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/ollie-lovell-tools-for-teachers/