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Gifted Pupils
'Good
teaching for the gifted and talented has the essential
characteristics of good teaching for any pupil but it is
particularly dependent on the teachers' own specialist
expertise and scholarship. In the best lessons seen, teachers'
knowledge of the subject was very secure.'
Providing for gifted and talented pupils
(Ofsted, 2001)
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Suggestions from Colleagues
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I've heard good things
about Andrew Jeffrey and also Kajartan Poskitt (of
Murderous Maths fame) once came to me school.
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We’ve taken Year 6 G&T
pupils to some very successful nrich workshops at the
Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of
Cambridge.
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Storming the Castle day at
Norwich castle? It involves some good maths with a
history of the castle?
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National Space Centre at
Leicester – their Operation Montserrat project is first
class
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Worth looking at the Royal
Institute Materclasses part of their website?
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I have done some work on
the Maths of the Dam Busters, some of which I borrowed
from an inspiring teacher I had when training who used
to come to school in full RAF uniform to teach it! I
played the pupils some of the film clips and made a
bomb-sight, looked at the bearings of the flights, used
trig to work out angles and distances of the drop, scale
drawings of the Lancaster etc. – could be helped by a
trip to Duxford?
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How about the
Hertfordshire cars whole day activity for G and T? –
Maths In Motion Software
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Bletchley park
Spymasters
If you are anywhere near Bedfordshire? There are free
lectures given at CMS at Cambridge Uni, it depends
whether you're tied to a specific day?
The Enigma machine will travel with James but I guess it
could make it expensive for such a small number?
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We've successfully used
treasure hunts for this kind of age group. How about the
group team challenge materials from UKMT? Or the
resources in the book Mathematical team games have
proved popular on a maths residential trip I ran for
8/9s
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We have based some work on
a Farm visit linked into Learning Maths Outside the
Classroom work from the NCETM. https://www.ncetm.org.uk/resources/9268
We linked it to science
looking at flora and fauna and using quadrants, soil and
water testing too with the farmer. We looked at safe
ladder angles against a wall, went on an orienteer
around the footpaths using compasses. We talked through
crop yields and income - large numbers. We estimated how
many loaves of bread can be made from a tonne of wheat.
We talked and worked through some conversions into euros
when selling grain in Europe. We looked at rain guages.
We saw the calves and talked of litres and pints of
milk.
When back in the classroom
we followed it up with Design Your Own Farm - a
functional maths activity from
http://www.functionalmathematics.co.uk/farm.htm
Whilst I work in a PRU and
these kids are quite challenging and not gifted and
talented it was a very useful way in which we could
enjoy a lot of meaningful maths.
When we run this again I
will encourage the students to use a flip camera and
have a maths trail - finding a range of shapes in the
environment; looking for real percentages, decimals and
fractions; building a 3d shape from straw bales -
working together. There is a huge amount of potential.
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Activities
and Resources
Project Work and
Problem Solving provide an excellent opportunity for the
gifted students to excel and develop their skills further/
This excellent selection of
resources was put together by a group of Leading Teachers in
Cumbria Primes, percentages, Fractions, Area, Pythagoras,
Speed Limits, Optimisation -
Click here
The GCSE Mathematics extension
materials are aimed at students who are working towards GCSE
Mathematics and would benefit from exposure to mathematics
beyond the GCSE specifications -
Click here
This set of investigative
problems looks at a range of topics many of which explore
maths beyond the GCSE curriculum (3Mb) -
Right
Click here and select Save As option
A really nice set of monthly maths puzzles available to
download from this american school's newsletter. the puzzles
often rely on algebra and would probably be suitable for
Higher GCSE/A level students, or G&T classes. full solutions
are also provided! -
Click here |
Bungee
Jumping
Pose a simplified problem of
a real life practical situation -
Click
here for an outline activity
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Bridge
Building
I have used the theme of
Bridge Building and worked with a group of more able pupils
from Year 8. The pupils were chosen by considering able
Mathematicians, Scientists and Technology Students.
There were 9 students working in groups of 3 who researched
the construction of bridges, produced planning sheets, scale
drawings etc... in line with DT practice. They were
taken out of one Maths, one Science and one DT lesson a week
for 3 weeks and then they had a 2 afternoon sessions set aside
for the final construction of their model.
Click
here for the
activity Click
here for the Timetable they worked to
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It it is worth noting that most
activities can be adapted to extend the thinking of pupils
in the classroom. I have also made use of a number of
the problem solving activities and the contextual questions which can be
found in the Problem Solving Sections of this site.
This document identifies some
of the ways gifted pupils are catered for by Mark Dawes an AST
at Comberton Village College in Cambridgeshire -
Click
here
Other Resources
For top 5%
C.W. Trigg, Mathematical Quickies: 270 Stimulating Problems -
ISBN 0 486 24929 2
A. Gardiner, Mathematical Puzzling - ISBN 0 486 40920 1
Tony Gardiner, More Mathematical Challenges - ISBN 0 521 58568
6
A Gardiner, The Mathematical Olympiad Handbook - ISBN 0 19
850105 6
Gardiner, Discovering Mathematics: the Art of Investigation -
ISBN 0 19 853265 2
David Wells, You are a Mathematician - ISBN 014 01 7480 X
For 5% to 10%
David Wells, Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting
Numbers - ISBN 014 02 6149 4
Tony Gardiner, Maths Challenge Book 1 - ISBN 0 19 914777 9
Tony Gardiner, Maths Challenge Book 2 - ISBN 0 19 914778 7
Tony Gardiner, Maths Challenge Book 3 - ISBN 0 19 914779 5
SMP 11-16, New Stretchers - ISBN 0 521 38389 7
Tony Gardiner, Mathematical Challenge - ISBN 0 521 55875 1
Tony Gardiner, Senior Mathematical Challenge - ISBN 0 521
66567 1
A. Gardiner, Mathematical Puzzling - ISBN 0 486 40920 1
Meet the challenge of the gifted with support articles,
curriculum ideas, Internet investigations and book lists from
this American Website.
www.hoagiesgifted.org
Teaching Mathematics to Able Children by Valsa Koshy –
David Fulton Publishers 1-85346-687-5
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