Real-life money

I spend too much time reminding my students that the currencies they work with (pounds, euros, dollars etc.) must be written to two decimal places or the nearest whole number (depending on whether the major or minor unit is being used) with the correct unit.  It is incredibly common for students to just write a […]

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Surd Form

Accuracy in mathematical language I was preparing some revised GCSE booster lessons for MyMaths recently on the topic of Quadratic Equations.  In some examples I requested that answers be left ‘in surd form’. By this I meant those irrational solutions coming from completing the square or using the quadratic formula. My editor’s response made me stop […]

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Equation building

When I meet people for the first time and they discover that I am a maths teacher/author I usually receive one of two reactions: ‘I hated maths at school and was never any good at it!’ or ‘I loved maths’. It is rare to find anyone in between these two extremes. Of those that hated […]

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Why quadratics?

One of the biggest ‘why oh why’ questions in secondary school mathematics is the purpose of studying quadratic equations because ‘I am never going to need them in everyday life’. This irritating question is based on a sound premise. The applications generally offered to students to persuade them of the usefulness of quadratics tend to […]

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The Alchemist Symbol

Visiting my home town of Leeds recently, my relatives took me to a restaurant in the city centre called The Alchemist. The sign above the door and on their business cards caught my interest. All kinds of maths sprung to my mind. Symmetry. Construction. Pythagoras. Trigonometry. Surds. Proof. The symbol could be presented to students […]

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