Spreading your peanut butter evenly...

I recently took on the role of Year Level Coordinator for Year 11. Whilst discussing with them stress, deadlines and having a "can do" attitude I accidentally said "make sure you spread your peanut butter evenly" whilst explaining how it is vital to spread out your workload rather than leave it until the last minute.

This weird analogy has now stuck and morphed into me also saying to them "if the peanut butter is not spreading very well try a new spread, maybe marmite" to get them to think about how they may be organising their schoolwork and approaching their studies and to change it up if it's not working out

Lovely little story but how has this weird analogy got me thinking about my current Maths curriculum planning I hear you ask? Joking - there's obviously no clear link between peanut butter and curriculum planning. Until now!

Over the last month or so in light of the new IB DP Maths curriculum changes I've been thinking a lot about how my own IB MYP curriculum planning could benefit from some updating. Updates that build pupils' confidence towards post-16 mathematics, concrete their mathematical foundations and turns them into conceptual and resilient problem solvers!

This update all started last year with me writing a unit map for MYP1-5 using the insanely brilliant Oxford MYP Mathematics: A concept based approach textbooks and all their support materials. I am very very rarely a textbook advocate but the authors' ability to create the foundations for MYP Maths units that almost seamlessly link all of the elements of the MYP Maths curriculum together is spot on!

Now that I have this MYP year 7 up to year 11 overview with details of all content/skill objectives, concepts, statements of inquiry, ATLs and etc I've started to wonder how can it be made even better?!

After reading this awesome blog post by @misterjeeps about making mixed ability work in the English classroom by planning for "number one" pupil and then back planning I realised I could apply this principle to improving my curriculum mapping.

Imagine what the "number one" Mathematics pupil can do by the time they leave high school. What Mathematical understanding do they have? What Mathematical skills do they have concreted? What concepts have they mastered? What approached to learning to they have? Then map this thinking and break it down year by year in terms of development.

It's important to note here than when I am talking about understandings I do not mean the traditional mathematical understanding of this is the rule, it works like this, done! I mean an actual personal understanding and connection with the Mathematical skills, concepts, mastery, etc.

This imagining and approach are currently in process with me taking the IBDP HL Maths papers and ideating what understanding, skills, concepts, and approaches to learning (ATL) are needed for each question and mapping backward. It's a massive work in progress and once I've got there I will share in another blog post.

But picture this.. the "number one" imagined pupil is the top of the toast and we start spreading the peanut butter down from there towards that pupil in year 7 when they join us. We then take the "weakest" imagined pupil on entry into year 7 and spread upwards from the bottom of the toast. We then hit the toast in the middle by imagining a year 9 pupil who is "middle of the road".

(Please note - my use of the imagined pupils' number one, middle of the road and weakest. I do not hold the belief that there ever exists a number one, middle of the road or weakest pupil as ALL PUPILS are capable of struggling, being in the middle of the learning road and of smashing Maths!!)

The peanut butter we're spreading represents the learning (that can be understanding, skills, conceptual, ATL et al based) we are spreading all of them up, down, middle, around, side to side to ensure that pupils are given the best chance at success in Maths!

This analogy has really helped in the first spreading - i.e. the first MYP Maths standard Unit Map that I've made. It's all below and unrefined and unapologetically not just my thinking. It's been put together using the Oxford textbooks (linked above), their unit plans and the brain of my wonderful work-wife (big shout out to Kelly here)! Ii's my put-together version so that I can see the whole slice of toast rather than just the little slithers that are seen when you just look at one unit plan, one year group, one textbook, etc.

It's absolutely not the done map - but when is a map of learning ever done! So here's my first share. and improvements will follow.

I am hoping that this evenly spread peanut butter analogy will help in helping my pupils absolute SMASH Maths by writing, revising and adapting the map constantly.

Please feel free to steal the map, steal the analogy and comment on any improvements you can add in! Your comments may be the different spread we've been searching for to enable our pupils to make even more progress!!