…A bold claim from The Daily Telegraph.
So have a look and (in a Geordie voice) you decide.
But as it’s all in a good cause – raising money for the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) – I suggest you watch, enjoy, and check out the charity’s good work.
The video was made at Surrey’s Amesbury School, with the help of students, teachers, and parents.
Good show!
According to the Maths-Whizz Teachers’ Resource dictionary, a number line is: “a line that shows numbers ordered by magnitude from left to right, or bottom to top.” Pretty simple? Yes, and then again, no.
The number line can be a powerful beast, employed in addition and subtraction, and frequently in concepts of place value. The number line describes the world in the way instantly familiar to most of us, with smaller items on the left (if horizontal) or towards the bottom (vertical).
We could investigate the many ways culture and psychology define our experience of numbers, and why so many (but not all) of us perceive numbers increasing in those two directions, but that would be beyond the scope of this blog – even if the God of Whizz might enjoy the intellectual excursion…
Number lines in addition and subtraction
Pop quiz – what’s one half divided by one quarter?
No, you’re not allowed to use a calculator, or or phone a friend…
Stuck? OK, it’s 2.
“What?” I hear you cry, “But that doesn’t make sense. We’ve divided something small by another small thing, that should make an even smaller thing, surely.”
And, of course, you’d be wrong. If you already knew the answer, or you’ve already seen this February’s Channel 4 documentary The Kids Don’t Count, then read on with a smug smile. If you were genuinely stuck by the question, let us demystify division for you.
For those of our UK Whizzers living under a rock, we have a new coalition government.
The new government has pledged to reduce the UK’s deficit by £6bn in the short term, with further savings to follow. This amount is relatively trivial in relation to the size of the deficit, but seen by some as an important first step.
1.3% of that six billion will – according to today’s news – be Becta-shaped (page 3 in the PDF linked above). The Department for Children, Schools, and Families has already changed to the more Ronseal Department for Education.
We’re still figuring out exactly what the demise of Becta means for us at Whizz, but with the organisation’s (or ‘quango’s’) remit to increase awareness and uptake of educational technology in state schools, there may be some negative effects.
Despite this, its our users and our staff who do the most work to spread the word about Maths-Whizz, and so the appearance or disappearance of government-funded bodies we hope will not affect our fortunes too greatly…
