A great opportunity for my intervention!

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 This morning I taught maths to a large group (around 21) of Y7/8 students performing well below in maths. In Geometry (our current focus), most of these students were around a year three level. Perfect for my intervention!

I was excited by the opportunity to teach a full lesson in the style of my intervention. With a range of activities and videos up my sleeve I devoted the full 80 minutes to teaching the students about the properties of shapes.

Some of our investigating included:

  • A triangle is still a triangle if it is 'upside down' and 'sideways'
  • There are different types of triangle
  • A square has to have the same length sides or it is a rectangle 
  • A rhombus is not a wonky square
  • Not every 5+ sided shape is a hexagon - there's a name for each!

The students actually loved learning these things! I was so pleasantly surprised by their level of engagement and willingness to ask questions when all of the tasks were at their level and presented in different ways.

At one point of the lesson we listened to a song describing all of the shapes and several of the students sung along - just as I had witnessed in the junior classes. 

I ended with a kahoot that contained all of the key learnings from the lesson - everyone ended feeling successful and clear about what they had learned. It was a big moment for one of my girls who won the kahoot and smashed the activities - it really boosted her confidence.

Things to adapt

My tasks involved too much writing. I hadn't considered that many of these students are also well below in writing, so it took me a moment to realise I needed to write the names of the shapes on the board for some to copy for spelling reasons (I had angles, vertices and sides written up as this was the vocab I anticipated being the focus for spelling/ acquistion). I will definitely consider the literacy demands of my tasks and spelling words next time.

My tasks were still too long. It took the students longer than I anticipated to get through their online slides. While these were multi-modal with digital manipulatives (quite engaging/ at correct level) they were still a little too long - I think the writing definitely contributed to this.

Some worksheets and paper based tasks were completed very quickly - but perhaps this is a good thing and it is me who needs to get used to a more rapid pace - as long as the task is not too easy!





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