Matt Parker is a renowned stand-up comedian and maths author, with a popular YouTube channel attracting almost one million subscribers. Originally a maths teacher from Australia, Matt now lives and works in the UK. His new book, Humble Pi, is a Number 1 Bestseller. 

Following Matt’s recent appearance on Pearson’s The Right Angle Podcast, Subject Lead and Podcast Host Nicola Woodford-Smith, reflects on their discussion and shares learnings on ways that teachers can foster a passion for maths among learners – not least by encouraging acceptance of mistakes and failures.

The 2022 Welsh curriculum in Primary schools

We know that the Welsh curriculum is changing in the new academic year in 2022 for all Primary schools, with Secondary schools to follow in 2023. When it comes to Mathematics and Numeracy in the new curriculum, there are five new Mathematical proficiencies for Welsh Primary schools:

• Conceptual understanding
• Fluency
• Communication with symbols
• Logical reasoning
• Strategic competence

In this blog we are going to look at how Abacus can be used to support the teaching of two of these proficiencies: fluency, and logical reasoning. There is no doubting that these two Mathematical areas are already being developed in Wales in the current curriculum, but the below is a reminder of the fantastic Abacus resources we have on offer to support these two skills.

By now you may have carried out the Spring 1 assessments in the Progress Tests, and the Spring 2 tests may not be far away. This blog summarises the averages from all schools, using the Spring term data in the online Markbook, in case it’s useful to compare. Don’t forget that you can enter scores into the Markbook to track and analyse results against age-related expectations. (Just click the Markbook tile when you log into Power Maths. There’s a walkthrough video here.)