Episode 195: Sometimes adding results in less — Is it time to cut vocabulary practice at the start of lessons?

So welcome back to another episode of the School of School podcast with my two favorite podcasters, Andy and Adam. Hello, both. Wow. And Andy, yes, very live action. I love it. People at home, they can't see you. they're missing out on all the fun. So we have been discussing a conversation about our school visits because we've recently done a number of school visits, all of us, not necessarily all together, but we did hit a couple together. And a lot of interesting takeaways from it. But Andy, just before we started to record, you were talking about a couple of things that insights you had. So why don't you start us off?

Some insights that I had, yeah.

Happily. So one of the things I've noticed over the years creeping in more and more is this idea that, I don't know what drives this, but it's kind of like, know, things are going kind of well, let's add more stuff, you know? it's like, it's, just people need to understand that sometimes adding things doesn't.

doesn't result in more, it results in less, right?

That's confusing children right now. You just said adding things results in less. there you go.

No, if you add negative numbers, you end up with less, right? So, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of like, you have to be very careful. And I think, so, so two of the things in particular that I've noticed that people have been trying to stack on top of what they're doing on a daily, as a daily routine is, this so-called fluency, which is not fluency, but it's just really memorization of number facts.

And the other one is vocabulary. I don't know where this, so the most damaging thing that happened since the new national curriculum, in my opinion, is this kind of idea, this stuff, this propaganda that came out during COVID of like back to, you know, back to basics or

back to the facts or, you know, kind of a super big emphasis on number and all this kind of stuff, which came out in a guise of various different.

initiatives by the Department for Education or the NCETM. And the one that, you know, the one that I, that really resonates with me in a negative way is the Ready to Progress documentation that came out, because it's kind of obliterated half the curriculum and put all this emphasis on number and on so-called fluency. Not helpful. And now the next latest, greatest thing is this idea of vocabulary. It's like, it's so important for children to know the vocabulary, right? And it's leading to, it's

leading situations in the classroom where we're kind of forgetting what the children are supposed to be learning because we're putting so much, we're stacking so much in the lesson. It's like, okay, we're going to start off. I want you to do all this number fact memorization exercise at beginning of the lesson. Maybe we're going to take 15 minutes and do some times tables or whatever it is. Okay, now let's get into our topic. So now like already a quarter of the class is gone, right? Cause we've been doing this like whatever speed check.

you know, performance review. And then we get to the topic, maybe the topic in the case that I was looking at recently that kind of really illustrated this for me was like, it's a division and the key part of the lesson is grouping and sharing, which is already really difficult for most children. One of the most challenging things they need to understand in primary mathematics because...

Because it's difficult conceptually to understand and also super important because if you don't get it, you're not going to be able to do this stuff later. Okay. Cause everything builds on top of that understanding and, and we're missing the thrust of the lesson, which is learning these things and we're replacing it with vocabulary. This is a quotient. This is the divisor.

Right? It was just largely just jargon. Like, I don't know any practical reason why you would ever need to know what those words mean other than if you were writing a book on mathematics vocabulary. Right? And we're not adding anything. We're just taking away. Because at the end of the lesson, none of the kids have learned what they were supposed to learn, but they might have learned the vocabulary. Maybe.

But even then they wouldn't even understand it. They would just memorize the words. So what's the point?

I agree. I totally agree. And I think just to add to that, and I know we've had this discussion, Andy, a number of times off here, because it's something that just drives me crazy, which is, you've already highlighted it, often there's 10, 15 minutes, you know, recall or however it's dressed up, it's something that tries to look at something that's not necessarily related with today's lesson. Here we go. We're going to throw it out there.

Thanks.

And the question I always ask practitioners is what happens if that, because you're going to get assessment data when you do it, right? You're going to find out whether or not they're good at it or they don't know it or whatever it is. And my question always is, if they're really good at it, so they show they're really good at it, does that not show that they've learned it? And so we've just, can you hand back 15 minutes, 10 minutes? You can't? Okay, well, that's a shame because we're going to need that to understand your division. Or what if they show we all don't know this?

Okay.

Like simultaneously, 30 children say, don't know it. Do you chuck your lesson in the bin and say, well, actually, I need to attend what my assessment data is just telling me. But people tend to just soldier on regardless. And I think these elements that come in, they start to, in almost this sort of folklore, become this is what good practice looks like. And it was interesting. And the total aside, but I think it feeds into this. There's a mathematician called Terry Tao at UCLA.

right, incredible mathematician. And I like it because often he was speaking quite plain language, even though mathematically he's on a different, he's in a different stratosphere. And he was saying that he thinks that mathematics can be really intimidating because every, if you're a mathematician, you've got to know every part of it. It's not like other disciplines that this person's really good at this part. And this person's really good, like in maths, this person's really good at spotting patterns. This person's really good at deciding what approach it should be. No, you've got to do the whole lot.

So he talks about how intimidating mathematics can be because you've got to do the whole thing. So can you imagine if mathematics is a seven year old, all of a sudden doesn't just become about the problem. I've got a list of these words, some of which you never use in your life, like ever, ever, ever. You've got this other thing that you're supposed to be memorizing, but if you don't, you're not quite sure what the consequences is because you carry on regardless. And then you've got to try to sort out division.

Can you imagine being seventh and having to wrestle with all of these parts?

Yeah, no, just don't wait. Yeah. Yeah. It's just too much, right? It's just too much. And also largely, even if you decided that it was really important that your children could remember

No.

It's a nightmare.

all their multiplication facts. Just imagine that this is a conclusion that you came to because we have this horrible year four test where, you know, there's in England where you have to do an online multiplication exam, right? So just imagining you just thought that that was really, really important. Like probably the worst way to try to teach your children their multiplication facts is by spending that 10 or 15 minutes at beginning of the class.

drilling questions, practicing, allegedly practicing this, this, your number of facts, because like, first of all, okay, you would say, like, I'm going to use your thread and you say, okay, the assessment of it is really important, right? Well, you're going to tell me your classroom, 30, 30 children that you don't already know who knows the multiplication facts and who doesn't, regardless of whether or not you do this 15 minutes every day, like you're going to know.

You know he doesn't know multiplication facts and she does. You know that already. So it's a waste of time from an assessment point of view because you already know. Right. The other thing that's important to note is that the children that already know their multiplication facts. How does that 15 minutes help them? Doesn't help them at all. Right. And you can't give it back. And the children that don't know. What do they get out of it? Other than being shamed.

Yep.

No, and you can't give it back.

Nothing, because you haven't taught them anything. You just basically highlighted in front of the whole class that they don't know their times tables. This is gonna make them hate maths even more. So what's the point of it? Like if you really, really want to spend time to teach them the multiplication facts, then do it honestly and just slow down when you're doing the multiplication section of your less, of your curriculum. Slow down and do it properly. Don't just name and shame children in this. It doesn't help. It doesn't help.

And throughout the year, they're going to be practicing their multiplication and their division and their addition and their subtraction constantly in every lesson. Every math lesson has operations in it and they have to practice them all the time. So they get ample opportunity to practice it. Just if you're going to teach them, teach them honestly, don't just shame children. It doesn't help, right? Just do it honestly. Sit down and teach them. Figure out what it takes to teach the topic really, really well.

in a way that they will remember and spend your time doing that and don't waste your time getting a lesson. So that's my point of view. The other thing is a jargon. You know what? The jargon is a whole other podcast on its own, I think. Yeah. I think we need to talk about that next.

Okay, so what's the answer? What's solution? We know where the pressure is coming from.

It's enough. It's enough if the, to spend an hour on, let's say in this instance, division and it's the, topic is grouping and sharing. So just for those who don't know what the hell we're talking about, you know, make seven equal groups or make groups of seven are two different questions. Okay. Entirely two different. So if you have a bunch of apples,

and you have to make seven equal groups of those apples, right? Or you make groups of seven apples, it's not the same thing, but they're both division. That's what we're talking about. That's enough for an hour lesson. That's enough. Actually, you probably can't do it in an hour. You're probably gonna have to do it over a couple of days, okay? If you really, really want children to understand it. That's enough. Don't throw in all this other stuff. It's not helpful.

sometimes adding results in a smaller, in less, not more.