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Emma Bukhari

Emma Bukhari

@emmabuk.bsky.social

630 followers 170 following 280 posts

Maths teacher, book lover

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Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 6d

Got to admit I'm disappointed my twins don't seem to be coming tonight. How cool would it be if the older one ended up being legally younger than the younger one due to daylight savings? Ok not that cool

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 8d

My school may sometimes have some crazy policies and ideas that I think are a bit silly, but a work from home inset day just before half term is absolute genius

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 8d

Can't wait to suggest these in the next subject leaders meeting

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

That would be really useful! Thank you for the offer.

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

And are you aiming for a symmetrical set of GCSE results? I'm trying to work out whether that matters

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

Oh so when you say above or below what do you mean?

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

Mathematically speaking I think that's only true if each question was independent. If success on one predicts success on another I don't think so necessarily

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

Why did you decide that a symmetrical, unimodal distribution was the ideal? Wouldn't a skewed distribution be a better indication of good teaching? Especially if you're using a mastery approach. (Not criticising, I really want to understand!)

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

So if their percentile for CATS was 40th and now it's 60th you might say they're making above expected progress?

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

I've always thought the skew in A level maths is weird. Other subjects aren't as skewed. Maybe if you remove FM students they're less skewed?

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

GCSE maths grades nationally are quite bell shaped. But it's a weird thing to aim for because if you want to increase your grade 9s you'd have to aim to increase your grade 1s too!

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

Wouldn't any distribution identify that though?

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

Oh good someone who's been through this! I would love to know how you think it's improved the usefulness of the data you have. Also you will always have half of your cohort below expected - is that useful?

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

This sounds sensible. The overlap means you can still compare well enough to decide if someone needs to move up or down a set.

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

That would make some sense. But it would probably be a flawed expectation. There's no reason to believe results will naturally follow a normal distribution.

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

It's just so hard when someone is using maths badly 😭😭😭

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

I agree. They didn't use to do the same test, we used to have three levels, but now they have to do the same one, which means that the bottom set has to do a test containing things they were never taught.

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

Yeah, if anything we should be trying to match it to the distribution of our SATs results, or to the distribution we're aiming for in year 11.

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 10d

They definitely won't. Frustrating though because I'd rather refuse to do it on the grounds that it's pointless. I'm going on maternity in four weeks though so I'm trying not to care

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 11d

And what I'm really concerned about is that we have whole year groups making less progress than they should, which will be hidden completely.

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 11d

It does seem a bit like the tail wagging the dog

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 11d

I'm not sure if you can tell, but it was a non maths teacher who came up with this idea

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 11d

I think they just mean that rough shape. They said that our assessments are badly designed if they don't make that shape. They want to track percentiles as a way of monitoring progress (?)

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 11d

Well I guess you look at your current distribution and you add easier or harder questions in? Or take them out? I mean the easiest way would be to leave the assessment as is and just use a transformation on the results, but that's cheating really

Emma Bukhari @emmabuk.bsky.social · 11d

At my school we have been asked to redesign our KS3 assessments so that the results will follow a normal distribution. Instinctively this feels like a bad idea. Maths teachers: what do you think? Anyone done this?