Jake Michael Bell

I have five years experience across a range of settings both in the UK and abroad. I have taught maths in both China and the UK; the UK has been embracing the 'shanghai method' of maths learning, as I discovered in my teacher training year. This is fantastic, as it relies on building fluency in all basic areas before moving onto more complex problem solving, reasoning or areas of maths with greater depth. I tend to base my lessons around this style of teaching as I have witnessed first hand & in many various settings how effective this is.

My pedagogy relies on discussions with students to enable the use of student voice. This has two benefits - firstly it allows for assessment of the pupils' skills and secondly it allows me to formulate lesson materials around the students interests. This means that lessons can be both targeted on challenging areas for the pupil as well as motivating them, as the pupils are engaging with something they would in their free time as opposed to abstract mathematical problems.

I think it is important to 'demystify' mathematics from its abstract roots and connect it to concepts that we can encounter in everyday life. An example of everything I have mentioned previously is in currency - in the past this was easier to teach as coinage and notes were used more frequently. Today this can seem more of an abstract topic but if a pupil is saving and has an income (even pocket money for a toy) it is easy to create mathematical problems around this, furthermore it links to the shanghai method as fluency is needed in basic operations (addition & subtraction) before the skill of managing finances can be learned.