Kingswood School receives national recognition for “Showing You’re Working”

On 19 January The Educational Guardian contained a special supplement which featured an article describing a collaboration between the Kingswood Mathematics Department, Kingswood School parents and Former Pupils. “Showing You're Working” is the brainchild of Head of Mathematics Garrod Musto, and is an attempt to raise awareness among pupils regarding the importance of mathematics in their daily lives. Click here to read the article. Weblink: http://www.guardian.co.uk/do-the-maths/learning-maths

Chapel talks

Garrod said “As a mathematics teacher, I am often confronted by students who rightly ask when this will be useful to me when I leave school? Despite my best efforts my answers don't really satisfy the students, possibly because I am Head of Mathematics and they expect me to say such things. I felt that I needed to get the message across to them but through a different medium. Hence I hit on the idea of encouraging former students and current parents to get involved somehow in the work of the mathematics department”.

Phase 1 of the project took place 18 months ago, when Garrod invited former students to answer a series of e-mailed questions. This information then became the basis for a booklet containing a diverse range of examples of the work of former Kingswood students. Garrod has used this material to good effect in the classroom, and more recently has written a variety of articles for academic journals such as Teaching Mathematics and its Applications, and Mathematics Today, in addition to speaking at a number of National conferences for Mathematics teachers, and writing up his experiences for several websites. Since then Garrod has developed phase 2 – which focuses on the work of our parent body.

At the beginning of October, he placed an advert in the parental e-newsletter and on the website explaining to all Year 7 and 8 parents that he wanted them to collaborate with their children to devise a short presentation showing how they – the parents use mathematics in their daily lives. This too was very successful, and Mr Musto received a number of very positive comments from staff, students and parents alike at the end of this phase. Mr Musto was invited speak at NCETM's December Conference for Mathematics teachers in Nottingham, and in his 40 minute talk he outlined the project and detailed many of the outcomes to date. These included now piloting the project in a group of Bristol schools, and “Showing You're Working” was also given national coverage as the only school based project showcased on the Maths Careers website. In addition a government funded initiative entitled “More Maths Grads” devised a video which was shot in Dec 2008 and is now an integral part of the Maths Careers website's “Showing You're Working” page. More Maths Grads considered this video clip an important tool to encourage teachers nationally to attempt similar such initiatives, and so this video is currently being sent to every secondary school in England and Wales alongside a range of other workplace related materials. Please follow this link for the maths careers website http://www.mathscareers.org.uk/viewItem.cfm?cit_id=382900

Former students talking to film crew about setting up the shoot

The teachers who attended Garrod's talk were very positive about the project, and as a result he was asked if NCETM could use “Showing You're Working” as an example of best practice in the encouragement of family learning among students.

“I am very pleased that the project has been viewed so positively by other teachers” said Garrod. “I have always felt that there is much potential in a collaboration such as this, as pupils can often relate better to a former student who returns to speak to them at school, or a fellow pupil who is able to explain how the members of their family use mathematics in their daily lives. At the end of the day the person detailing their experiences could very well have sat in their desks, studied the same subjects, and even in some cases been taught by the same teachers; therefore they will have more empathy with the experiences of the speakers and connect more with them as a result”.

Garrod is currently looking to develop collaboration work with parents former students, and some examples to date include, writing an article examining the paw prints of a Roman Dog with former student and retired museum curator Mr Leslie Cram; which has recently been accepted for publication by Significance - the academic publication of the Royal Statistical Society. Others in the pipeline involve Bath Rugby Club, A brilliant local Magician, Deal or No Deal, and assessing the effectiveness of the Mulberry Harbours after the DDay landings.

Five former students who returned to Kingswood to speak to current students , from left to right they are: John Marsham, James Drake, Philip Sweetenham, Alasdair Dawson, Nick Mills

If you have an idea to share or are interested in helping out with academic departments in any way, please contact Mr Musto, who will be only too happy to help develop further links where possible with parents and former students.

Garrod Musto MPhil FIMA
Head of Mathematics
Kingswood School
Bath