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making progress during an oral mental starter in year 5

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    I have an interview next week in year 5 where I have been asked to teach a 15 minute oral mental starter in maths.  They have said that the observer will be looking for most of the children to make some progress in that time - I am having a total block.  I think I'm just panicked by the making progress part in such a short period of time.  Any help would be much appreciated!!
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    That sounds like a tough call. IMO this part of the lesson is for rehearsing skills needed for the main part of the lesson or for keeping other skills ticking over.

    However ... as you probably have no idea what they know, I would suggest selecting something where the children can derive from know facts. You could model how to derive facts and then challenge them to come up with more of their own.

    Another option might be to give them some answers and ask them to come up with the question ... you get a good variety with this and no differentiation needed.

     Carrie Coffee

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    What nonsense, progress in 15 minutes. I think the above suggestion is good, give the answer, what's the sum?
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    I agree that I use the starter to engage them in the lesson and warm them up, not to actively teach and expect them to make progress. So I'll probably be unsatisfactory when Ofsted come. Oh well.

    Something I do like to use in starters is the 'maths challenges for able pupils' booklet. There's a section for years 5-6. However, as it's for 'able' pupils, I'd get some from the earlier sections too. There are lots of great open-ended problems which allow pupils to be challenged at the level which is right for them. For an interview in which you don't know the pupils, it will be important to choose one or two that will be accessible for pupils with SEN too but I'm sure there are some which can be adapted for different levels of ability.

    http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/12212/mathspuzzlesall.pdf

    Hope it goes well.
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    Thank you all for the advice, my original thought was that they might be able make progress in MA1 - using and applying.  Maybe with an nrich activity but I'm not sure if that'd fit into 15minutes.  Also not sure if for an interview they'll be expecting something original??  I also quite like the idea of giving the answer, they could discuss possible questions then I could reveal the operation or one of the numbers in the calculation so they could work missing numbers.

    Thanks again for all your suggestions, I will keep thinking about it!

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