STOCK MARKET CHALLENGE: BRINGING REAL WORLD MATHS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM CONTEXT
Bonus Pastor Catholic College is rated as an outstanding Specialist Maths and Computing school. In an initiative to energise the maths curriculum for Year 11 students ahead of their mocks exams, a range of one off learning opportunities were organised for Year 11 mixed ability students including some from the nearby Thomas Moore School.
Stock Market Challenge Live
A whole morning was dedicated to getting of Year 11 students out of their normal maths classrooms and into the school hall. The students worked in mixed ability and mixed school groups with the aim of taking on the role of company directors’ intent on maximising profits.
The session was led by Graham Smart (LGfL Maths Consultant) and was observed by the staff of both schools’ maths departments as part of their continuing professional development. The focus was on empowering students to assimilate large amount of data and make their own informed decisions within their groups. For this event, the material was offline, and paper based but forms the basis of the online Stock Market Challenge available to all LGfL schools found in the Maths in the Real World Resource.
What did the ‘Stock Market Challenge Live’ event achieve?
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Heightened engagement in maths learning activities
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Promoted discussion and problem solving approaches within a group context
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Increased pace of learning and desire to achieve
Conclusion
Maths is all around us and plays a key role in all our lives. The way in which we engage with children of all ages to maths at school will fundamentally influence their attitude towards numeracy for the rest of their lives.
There is no doubt that engaged, enthused learners achieve more and make faster progress.
By bringing real world relevance into everyday maths teaching activities it helps motivate all learners and particularly those for whom standard text books based learning do not sufficiently inspire them to understand the vital role that maths plays in our everyday lives.
Quote from Grahame Smart
"Students are more likely to not only enjoy the subject but also remember what they have learnt if they can appreciate why they need to learn it."
Advice for schools adopting cloud platforms
Engaging with LGfL Curriculum and Cloud Platform Support:
Contact: contentsupport@lgfl.net to secure support for the effective use of LGfL learning resources and how to use them in the context of cloud platforms such as G suite, J2e and Office 365.
LGfL Learning Resource consultants can provide in school support to work alongside teachers to help supportlong term curriculum planning activities that incorporate cloud platforms and LGfL learning resources.
Attend cloud platform support training courses that are offered every term via www.training.lgfl.net
Cloud Platform offer an ever-increasing range of flexible accessibility tools to help include all learners.
