It was nearly a decade ago when I was chatting to my dear pal Susan Okereke about her job as a maths teacher. She is so passionate about the subject but was feeling despondent that whenever she told anyone about her work, people’s reactions tended to be negative, telling her they hated maths at school, or were rubbish at it, or couldn’t see the point of it.
We thought it would be a good idea to create a podcast series aimed at making maths accessible – and fun! – for everyone, and so we approached another maths teacher, Bobby Seagull, who we’d recently seen on University Challenge. The three of us met up to discuss the idea, and Maths Appeal was launched in December 2018.
Previous series have been targeted at maths students or at people of all ages who are keen to build their maths confidence. For series 4, we’ve teamed up with Pearson to create monthly episodes for maths educators – teachers, heads of department, school leaders and maths influencers.
The first episode is out in time for the new academic year, and it’s full of advice and tips for teachers returning to the classroom. Bobby and Susan welcome special guest Faze to find out how his juggles his life as a trainee teacher along with content creator and powerlifter!
Every episode features a maths problem which Bobby and Susan solve: in this series they’ve selected questions from Pearson past exam papers which students have found particularly difficult, and they discuss how they would teach these to students, with reference to the examiners’ comments.
There’s also a Maths Fact, courtesy of resident quizzer Bobby, at the end of each episode, so you can round off your listening with some top trivia to pass on to your friends!
If you’re involved in maths education, we hope you enjoy them and find them useful! Subscribe to Maths Appeal wherever you get your podcasts and new episodes will be with you at the start of every month.
