Iain's story about Andrew

Student Story

Iain Hand
Alberton Primary School
Alberton Cluster

I have had the opportunity during lessons to sit back and observe the change in attitude towards maths in many of may students. Below are some notes I have made about two students which reflects this change.

Observation
Andrew wants to be involved in hands on activities. He showed me this today when constructing some prisms. He was making a handle for his Roman sword and talked to me about how he would go about this. I asked him what shape he was looking at. He grabbed the pencil from me and excitedly said, “I know, I know, it’s one of these!” He drew a rectangular prism on the cardboard he was working from and then talked to me about how he could make it and what
shapes made up the prism. “Do I make a couple of squares and some rectangles and stick them together?” He  eventually drew a net of the shape (something we had done earlier in the year) and then once he had constructed his handle, offered to make Keith’s handle for him, as Keith had been away for a few days.

Observation
Johnny (Aboriginal Community Education Officer) came to pick up Andrew today (Shed Programme). Andrew didn’t want to go with him; he wanted to stay to continue with his Roman project. This is a massive change from earlier in the year, when Andrew would keep an eye out for Johnny and call out to him when he would walk past the room so he could get out of maths lessons as quickly as possible.

Observation
Over the last few weeks Andrew has continued to work solidly, measuring, cutting, adding, and subtracting to construct his Roman house, sword and shield. He has been busy working (happy  even) and I have not had to ask him to refocus on tasks. He has not had any kind of behavioural issues. He gets on with work straight away, only stopping to ask what is next – very driven.

Observation
Andrew asked today, “Will we be doing similar things in here for maths next year?” Seems to have made the assumption that he is going to continue in my class next year – interesting!!...

See Iain's Unit of Learning Shape and Sculpture to find out more about his approach to teaching.