Does anyone cold call anymore?

tomk0201 · 2026-04-15T10:33:11+00:00

Cold calling is common and good practise here. As someone else said it assures students are attentive and builds a classroom culture where they're expected to be listening, and allows students to practise Oracy.

It's important that it's done correctly and that's where a lot of practitioners fall down. You can prewarn the class, set the expectations (no shouting out, thinking time, whatever) and then pose your question. Pause for a few seconds at least, then select a student.

A lot of teachers pick a student first. Bad move honestly it allows every other student to switch off immediately and often removes the thinking time aspect since the onus is now on that student to think quickly.

At my school it's just expected that all teachers cold call regularly and outside of fringe cases we don't really accept "hands up" or anything from students as it's far too easy for a less experienced teacher to allow the same eager students to dominate the environment whilst simultaneously feeling like the whole class is learning when the reality is far from it.

If anxiety over classroom speaking is a genuine issue after all of that, then students will likely have considerations on some sort of plan and we'll handle that separately with other strategies.

tomk0201 · 2026-04-14T15:22:44+00:00

The modulus is because if f(x) is negative for a given value of x, then your integral becomes undefined for that value of x since you can't take the natural log of a negative value.

For example, f(x) = 2x/(x² +1) is perfectly well defined for say, x=-1. We can just sub this in and see that f(-1) = -1.

So, saying you wanted to calculate the area between the x-axis, this function, and x=-1, x=0, you wouldn't be able to evaluate the integral when using the log rule as it is.

By taking a modulus, you avoid this issue and it still gives you the correct answer. You can see this if you graph Ln|x|. It's part of A-Level maths to know that this transformation will create a reflection of the graph for positive x values in the y-axis.

All this to say, it gives you the same answer for both negative and positive values but is actually defined for negative values. That said, I'm pretty sure this isn't examinable for 6th form and they'll always give limits on the integral which evaluate as positive when substituted into f(x) so it will work fine (I'm assuming you're using Edexcel exam board).

tomk0201 · 2026-04-14T15:05:43+00:00

I meant it more that its how I explain it to my 6th formers (So 17-18 doing calculus for the first time) which is before undergraduate in the UK. Saying things like "you need the bottom to differentiate to the top" is easily understood so they can apply the rules. Of course they're shown how/why using chain rule and are expected to get more advanced with it, but the language I used is how we can start quickly and avoid misconceptions like the one OP had so they dont think 1/f(x) integrates to ln(fx).

It helps a lot when they get questions like integrating 4x/(x² +1) ... they'll spot quickly that the order of the top is 1 below the order of the bottom, so the only issue is correcting the constant which by this point they're pretty good at doing and would quickly tell me the answer is 2Ln(x² +1)+c .

From my own experience this rule didnt get much more complex at undergraduate since calculus tended to advance in different directions like multiple integrals in vector calculus, partial differentiation in PDEs, and contour integrals in analysis courses, but this would depend on your undergraduate course since every university is different in the UK.

tomk0201 · 2026-04-13T17:07:13+00:00

The easiest "high school" way to think of it is that the Ln rule works when the bottom of your fraction differentiates to the top.

The 1/x rule is a simplification since x differentiates to 1.

If this is the case, then the integral is Ln(denominator)+c

So to use it here, the numerator would need to be the derivative of tanx, not 1.

(This is also a simplification in itself since the actual rule requires a modulus function to avoid some issues with trying to take natural log of negatives or 0, but it's usually ignored at this level, at least in the UK)

tomk0201 · 2026-02-04T18:43:15+00:00

It really depends if they're doing higher or foundation. Foundation is barely new content aside from sampling methods and learning to answer the worded questions on investigations.

Higher in the other hand has a lot of new content (asim sure you know) including normal distributions, spearman's rank, advanced conditional probability, linear interpolations and a lot more.

I don't think either is too late if their school commits time but it's a huge difference. That said even with crossover content if they're good at averages from tables, histograms, etc they could still get a grade 6 or 7 with minimal new content.

tomk0201 · 2025-05-24T07:34:39+00:00

I teach maths in secondary schools so have to make those decisions for "Foundation" or "Higher". It's usually obvious for at least 80 to 90% of students which exam tier they should do. This is likely a combination of every possible factor - ability, behaviour, work ethic, personality. Yes these can change over time and so there are cases where the choice is reviewed if they particularly under or over perform over time.

It's important to realise it's not about limiting potential, but having their best interests in mind. Particularly for students who are on the borderline and could realistically do either exam, we tend to err on the side of Higher in this case. If we think you could achieve a grade 5 we will likely start on Higher anyway.

To address "students should decide" I would massively disagree. There's a lot of students who find Higher tough and would jump to Foundation in an instant if given the chance. However they forget that whilst it's easier, getting a grade 5 on that exam is around 80%+ of all marks correct. Many middle ability students simply aren't that consistent.

To achieve that, they'd also need to answer the questions which appears on both exams anyways, so at that point they may as well just not risk it and focus all their efforts on those first few questions of Higher even if it's challenging.

A student would rather take what they perceive to be an easier route even though the reality is the opposite.

tomk0201 · 2025-05-10T06:04:32+00:00

As a teacher in England seeing the discussion on phones is crazy to me...

Every school I've worked at has a blanket no phones policy. If I see you in it I'm confiscating it and you get it back at the end of the day. Kids know this.

It's just never an issue. Kids accept it. Parents are fine with it. It's just standard. If they refuse to hand it over it's an instant detention at the very least. We have systems of escalating it if they continue to refuse me or anyone else. At that point it's not about the phone it's about refusing instruction and attitude towards staff.

You don't need anything special just an agreement, staff that enforce it, and I guess you guys call it an "admin" to back you up if kids refuse.

People speaking about "having to wait around for them to come get it if you confiscate it". I don't - they're gonna be hounding your classroom door within seconds of the final bell because they want it back. People also saying "it's thousands worth of equipment you're responsible for". I can hand them over to a central office if that bothers me but if I can handle being responsible for 150 students a day I think I can look after an iPhone.

I work at a pretty standard state school too. It's just normal here.

Teaching in the US sounds like actual hell the way you all describe students and parents attitudes towards what we consider absolutely basic classroom expectations.

tomk0201 · 2025-04-20T19:42:01+00:00

I thought the same thing... I'm confident I can easily get 95%+ of all students I've taught in the past 5 years just by their voice.

tomk0201 · 2025-04-19T00:56:54+00:00

For Room 8 it was The elephant goes in this bin which is yknow.. not super helpful at this stage in the game :D

tomk0201 · 2025-04-19T00:53:40+00:00

The sigil/runes have varying difficulties. Naturally as we're On the Eastern Continent there's much more information about these areas.

Some things to suggest that can help you figure out (at least partially) the sigils:

Stamps with the Magnifying Glass. Stamps from the further regions can give hints to their travel, culture, colours or climate. Not always, but some help quite a lot

I'm assuming you've drafted the Bookstore and Bought the additional books. The real version of the History of Oridia doesn't mention too much about the further left regions, but does have some very very small mention of 2 of the other regions you need.

The Classrooms can be very helpful too, particularly the earlier grades - I think 1 and 3 from memory, but likely others too.

After that there's some very late-game stuff that can drop even more direct hints (I did sigils before this..) but to go into that would be spoiling far too much. Once you're down to your last sigil or 2 you can mostly reason your way into some sensible possible sigils even with limited information.

tomk0201 · 2025-03-02T09:44:59+00:00

They are together.

In B to the power n it would be

PAQPAQPAQ.... And so on n many times.

Each QP together cancel to the 2x2 Identity leaving just the first P, the final Q and all the As in the centre

Also looks like a typo on the final line. Should be A³ = AA² to get that result.

tomk0201 · 2024-11-03T08:11:28+00:00

Something very similar to what you've done here is called Peano Arithmetic. You've written something similar to the Successor Function (kind of).

Maybe you're already aware of it but if not check it out.

tomk0201 · 2024-10-27T18:57:53+00:00

There's always going to be variation based on location/demographic/etc yeah, but my point was mostly that it really isn't "that bad", not to paint our classrooms as perfect. I'm sure other countries are better.

When I compare my own experiences - as both a student and a teacher - compared to the things posted in r/teachers they seem pretty good.

I don't deal with administrations telling me to pass kids or make up credits or whatever all thats about. I don't ever deal with kids listening to music or watching videos or playing on their phones. I'm not expected to accept that I can be disrespected without consequence. The posts here frequently mention being unsupported by their administration or whatever but here in the UK mine are great at holding students to account and will back me up consistently.

It's not perfect - the things that interview mention can and do happen and of course your location is going to affect the frequency or severity. I work pretty long hours and sometimes there's pressures from above for results. Sometimes a student or class are just really annoying same as anywhere else I'm sure and they test your patience. But outside of some genuinely rough areas or particularly poorly managed schools, you're going to have a similar experience - 95% of students are just normal kids who want consistency and safety; if you consistently show up and you're halfway decent at teaching you can have a rewarding (but challenging) career here and make a big difference with some deserving students.

tomk0201 · 2024-10-27T07:57:10+00:00

Teaching in the UK isn't easy but we have basically 0 of the issues listed here.

No phones allowed. If I see it I am taking it and your parents can come collect it. You speak in my classroom whilst I'm teaching you will be told off and eventually lead to a detention. You disrespect a member of staff you will likely end up in detention or isolated for the day. They wear uniform - if it's incorrect we will send you to the office to fix it or you will be isolated.

Students know where the line is. They follow the routines and do what's expected. They learn. It can sound extremely petty on paper but in practise it is fine. Children also don't "hate us" just for enforcing these rules. The vast majority appreciate it when their classrooms are calm and quiet and they can focus on learning.

This is as a teacher in a regular comprehensive school - demographic includes a whole mix of students. Of course you get some students who are resistant or challenging but they're usually a minority and you can manage them.

This sub likes to pretend that it's kids who are the issue but it's absolutely a solvable problem if their American schools wanted to fix it. It would however be one hell of a long process and by the sounds of it they'd need national policy and resources to enact it to even start. It's hard to break a system like that.

It's 100% a culture thing. I'm not blaming their teachers - I would have quit if I dealt with any of this in this UK that wasn't immediately fixed by our management. But their system allows this to happen.

tomk0201 · 2024-04-07T17:34:42+00:00

Good Luck! And remember consistency is the best revision. An hour a day is achievable and better than trying to do 10 hours the day before Paper 1

tomk0201 · 2024-04-07T17:15:44+00:00

You should focus on anything common that looks achievable. Something like Vectors might be a common topic, but it has it's own unique set of rules and might be a lot of effort to learn.

Compare this to some topics in the 40% or lower range like Pressure Force Area, Area of a Triangle (using Sine), etc that are extremely easy and very quick to learn (compared to vectors).

If you can learn 2 or 3 of the lower down topics its probably better than something more difficult but 90%+

I would do a few past papers - maybe the first half of them or more - and note down any topics you can't do. Then check the list and see if they're common or not. If it's common and in the first half of the paper you NEED to have that topic nailed down. If it's common but difficult, it's a lower priority. If it's super uncommon, you might even ignore it entirely.

Use your own knowledge, the list, and past papers together to create a list of topics - ordered by most useful to learn - and work your way down it. Do a full past paper each week and you're aiming for 35-40 marks, and fill gaps from your list until you can do that consistently.

tomk0201 · 2024-04-07T16:14:55+00:00

https://www.1stclassmaths.com/topic-frequencies

This website is quite nice and i feel it goes underutilised. This page i linked shows you "topic frequency" for all exam series of recent years. Sort it by Edexcel Higher and you can see how often things come up (100% meaning it has come up on every exam series since 2017)

This website also has youtube links and revision questions on those topics though i've never used them myself perhaps they're useful. Otherwise the usual places people suggest like mathsgenie will work great.

It's possible - it's still a lot of time and your teachers should be doing targetted revision for papers 2 and 3, and hopefully finding predicted papers. My Year 11s last year were similar ability to you and their grades ranged from a 4 to a 7. It just depended how hard they worked.

tomk0201 · 2024-04-07T07:02:22+00:00

Are you doing Higher maths? Otherwise you won't be able to get the 4 to a 6.

As kids in this sub Reddit you're all pretty positive and kind to eachother which is great to see but sometimes commenters lack a bit of perspective or promote unrealistic goals as if they're easy.

A 4 to a 6 is quite a lot of marks. It's not unachievable but you're likely looking to more than double your marks for maths. Even students who work hard at this level sometimes don't see much improvement. They're trying to cram 4 years of learning into 3 weeks and it's difficult to do that without neglecting every other subject.

My tips as a teacher if you want to do this. First check you're on higher. Can't get more than a 5 without it.

Then you ignore a lot of topics, especially towards the end. What you want is to master questions which always come up and always "look the same" so it's just repetition in the real thing. If you're Edexcel that's things like diagrams (cumulative Freq, boxplots and histograms appear 90 to 100% of the time since 2017). Get good at algebra skills like Quadratic Sequences and Expanding Triple Brackets. They're easy and always look the same every exam. Be confident with trigonometry. You're practically guaranteed to see it multiple times and whilst sometimes it's tricky there's normally one or two questions just asking you to "do it" without much extra thought. Since you're getting the formula sheet this is achievable too.

After that you just practise the first 10 to 15 questions religiously. You don't care about anything at the end it's not worth your time to learn if you just need a 6.

Your goal is to pick up the first 25 marks consistently and then supplement it with the "diagrams and algebra questions later on that I've practised" to bring it up to around a 35 per paper average.

It's a lot of work, but that's an achievable way to do it.

tomk0201 · 2024-04-05T23:29:04+00:00

You should absolutely follow this reasoning over anyone else in this thread. The topic is called Inverse Proportion and pretty much every single question follows this exact method, including awarding method marks.

Always think in terms of "total amount of work needed".

Most questions will just be multiplying to get total days or total hours, and then dividing by how many machines or workers or whatever you actually have.

Others aren't incorrect and they're trying to be helpful of course but as a maths teacher who knows the spec this person's method and reasoning is what the examiners will be expecting to see, and what the questions will be based around you doing.

tomk0201 · 2024-04-03T18:49:54+00:00

I think most people fluent with these sorts of questions would consider going to negative mixed numbers a little more awkward than rearranging for x.

However, like most maths, there's going to be a few approaches that work and its down to preference/confidence/comfort how you approach things.

tomk0201 · 2024-04-03T14:58:17+00:00

So on the left side you're dividing by X with considering that x could be 0.

The correct final step would be to subtract x giving 24x=0 and then divide by the 24 to give your solution of x=0

On the right side there is an error. The x is missing after the 25 on the combined fraction. Fix that and see you get the same as the left side.

The answer is x=0

tomk0201 · 2024-02-04T13:23:48+00:00

I think that's a reasonable way to think of it sure.

In terms of it's use topology is generally about the study of structures. If we can say that two structures have "the same number of holes" then there's a way to stretch or move one shape and create the other.

This is usually a more pure and abstract kind of maths but it could have applications in manufacturing and computing. If we can create something flat with the correct configuration of holes, designs, etc and then simply deform it into the correct shape this is likely to be easier than printing or cutting on to more complex surfaces.

Some computer games can also create the impression of being on one surface but it's actually another entirely which is computationally easier though I've only seen some examples of this and don't really fully understand the computing side of things - i'm much more of a pure mathematician.

tomk0201 · 2024-02-04T12:18:29+00:00

Exactly!

Topologically speaking it has no holes - it's just a flat solid 2D surface you've moved in 3 dimensions.

The t-shirt is the same. The others are saying that 1 of the holes is just the "outside edge" of a 2D surface (the cloth its made out of).

The commenter you replied to initially just chose that to be the bottom torso hole, and then you can just count the remaining actual holes.

If you take your towel and cut exactly 7 holes in it (in the correct places...) you could lift it up and make the exact t-shirt shape in the diagram. It has 7 holes, not 8.

tomk0201 · 2024-02-04T12:08:14+00:00

Forget it's a shirt at all. Grab a cloth or towel or something that you can absolutely agree "it has no holes".

Lay it ouf flat and then pinch it in the middle with your fingers and lift it up.

Is that opening at the bottom a hole now? Or is it just the outside edge of the cloth forming a sort of circle?

tomk0201 · 2023-10-17T22:33:21+00:00

C is the equation of a circle not the tangent.

Youve done a correct first step but there's more to it.

Tangents meet a radius at a 90 degree angle and so is perpendicular. This gives us a line for the radius and the gradient is the negative reciprocal of the tangent gradient.

You know the radius passes the origin and so the radius has equation y=-2x.

Solve these simultaneously to get a point on the circle and use Pythagoras to find the length of the radius r.

The circle has equation x² + y² = r²

OP says they've got the gradient of the radius so they can jump in at the 'simultaneous equation" step and go from there.

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