Last week in Year Six we officially started our brand new Maths Academy. The arrival of iPads at ISM has meant many things and given me the oportunity personally to reflect on my own pedagogy. This is my seventh year of teaching, and to be honest during those seven years the way I taught maths had hardly changed. Indeed, I was still using some of my old Smartboard files to teach with. Any teacher will tell you that collating old resources is a valuable thing to do, however I had to question exactly what value was this adding? Sure, it saved me time, but as for the children in my class? Therefore I thought how could I incorporate the iPad into my maths lessons to re-energize the classroom experience for the learners and for me – I then came across the awesome ShowMe App and an idea sprang into my mind.

You may or may not have heard of the Khan Academy; an online maths tutoring programme that delivers on its promise to give a free world class education to anyone, anywhere. Using ShowMe I realised that the children could actually create their own mini-lessons, empowering them not on as learners but as educators too.

Rather than traditional question and answer mathematics – I wanted the children to think about the maths behind the answers and deepen their understanding of mathematical concepts, and I believe that our burgeoning maths academy demonstrates that it is already happening.

Please take some time to have a look at the great work the kids have produced and leave some comments. Maths Academy