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In this episode of the Mr Barton Maths podcast, Craig and Jo discuss three burning issues from the Hubspace community this week:

• How do you make homework work in the age of AI?
• How do you handle students moving sets and communicate this to parents?
• How do you stop students from being confused by the equal sign?

View the show notes here: https://podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/232-hod-space-ep3-ai-and-homework-setting-students-and-the-equals-sign/

Craig speaks to Manu Kapur, Professor of Learning Sciences and Higher Education at ETH Zurich and the researcher behind productive failure. They cover what the framework is and is not, the mechanisms behind it, how long students should struggle, what AI tutors mean for learning before instruction, and the strongest challenges to his work. Access the show notes here: https://podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/231-productive-failure-with-manu-kapur/

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Access the show notes here: ⁠https://podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/230-hod-space-ep2-notes-in-exercise-books-offsted-and-a-level-class-sizes/

In this episode of the podcast, Jo Morgan and Craig Barton discuss:

1. What actually goes in the exercise book

Prompted by a HoD Space member's survey request, Craig puts four options to the community — I do, we do and independent work; I do and independent work; independent work only; or no exercise books at all — and reports where members landed. He sets out why he thinks copying down worked examples is a pace killer and an illusion of understanding, Jo explains why she models on the board but never asks students to copy it, and the two of them disagree about whether key words and definitions have earned their place in the book.

2. What the new Ofsted framework means for heads of maths

Jo asked HoD Space members for recent first-hand experience of inspection under the new framework, and reports back on what came out of it: deep dives have gone, middle leaders may not be asked to talk about their own department, and questions about the maths curriculum are landing with line managers instead. She and Craig work through what that means in practice — the workload around annotated seating plans, the pressure schools are putting on exercise books, the focus on gaps in Year 7 prior knowledge — and land on the same advice from two directions: make sure the person who line-manages you can articulate what happens in maths lessons and why.

3. A-level class sizes

A thread from a member who had seen their A-level groups grow turned into the episode's biggest surprise. Jo describes teaching 28 in further maths and hearing from a school with 32 in a room that seats 32, before setting out why this bites from three angles — the head of maths trying to recruit and carrying an ever-larger key stage five, the classroom teacher who physically cannot get round the room, and the student who was told A-level classes would be smaller than GCSE ones. Craig brings in the Campaign for Mathematical Sciences research on the scale of the problem, and Dylan Wiliam's warning that cutting class sizes only improves outcomes if teachers do something different with the time — and if the extra teachers you hire are as good as the ones you have.

Craig speaks to Joe Liemandt, principal of Alpha School and founder of Trilogy Software, about the model behind the school's two-hour academic day. They cover selection effects, what does and does not scale, the data the apps generate, the future of the teaching profession, and Alpha's plans for the UK. Access the show notes here: https://podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/229-ai-in-education-with-joe-liemandt/

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Access the show notes here: ⁠https://podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/228-hod-space-ep1-praise-tick-sheets-year-7-sets-first-departmental-meeting/⁠

In this episode of the podcast, Jo Morgan and Craig Barton discuss:

1. Praise, and the problem of the "invisible pupils"
Prompted by a question from HOD Space member Megan, Jo and Craig dig into Pritesh Raichura's seating plan tick sheet — where a teacher aims for 30 to 50 individual praises a lesson — and ask whether that's realistic in a maths lesson built around long stretches of independent practice, before turning to how a head of department supports a teacher who wants to try something like this, and what it would take to roll it out across a team.

2. Setting Year 7
Jo explains why her school groups new Year 7s using SATs results rather than a baseline test, how two early end-of-unit tests are used to sense-check those groupings, and why keeping the whole business of setting deliberately low-key matters as much as getting the groups right.

3. Planning your September INSET meeting
Jo makes the case that the first department meeting of the year is the most important one you'll run all year, and talks through what goes into hers — from lesson expectations and homework routines to the admin nudges teachers need and the single department focus that will shape the year ahead.

In an unscheduled episode, Kris Boulton analyses a trainee teacher's volume-of-prisms sequence. He and Craig Barton work through key design principles — simplifying the rule, stripping out the arithmetic, starting with the general case, and building testing and expansion sequences that force genuine mathematical thinking. Access the show notes here: podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/227-breaking-down-an-example-sequence-with-kris-boulton

Returning guest Zach Groshell, author of Just Tell Them, explains how he designs Direct Instruction maths apps for Alpha School. They cover the US school system, why most education apps fail, how atomisation and mastery work on a screen, the limits of data and motivation, and why he chose a different school for his own daughter. Access the show notes here: podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/226-ai-in-education-with-zach-groshell

In this AI in Education episode, Craig Barton welcomes back Dylan Wiliam to discuss what generative and extractive AI mean for assessment, teaching and the purpose of schooling. Wiliam argues the evidence base is thin, urges caution about education's long feedback loops, and distinguishes cognitive offloading from cognitive outsourcing. Access the show notes here: podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/225-ai-in-education-with-dylan-wiliam

Kris Boulton returns for the AI in Education mini-series. He shares how Claude has become fully woven into his daily work, gives a candid first-hand account of his visit to Alpha School in New York, and digs into where AI now sits for creating high-quality maths resources — and where it still falls short. Access the show notes here: podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/224-ai-in-education-with-kris-boulton

Grainne Hallahan, formerly an English teacher, now runs the questions at Teacher Tapp — the app that surveys more than 10,000 teachers a day. She came on with five AI-related findings from the archive, on cheating, lesson planning, attendance targets, and whole-school policies, plus three favourite Teacher Tapp findings to finish. Access the show notes here: podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/223-what-do-10000-teachers-think-about-ai