Boys

Today I had the pleasure of looking in on Mr Joe Aldridge's Year 8 maths class when he was teaching them above the level required of his age group of boys turning 12 or 13 in this school year.

It was an absolute pleasure to see boys so alive, enthusiastic about learning nets, the volume and other measures about cones after, in one lesson, having learned about pyramids, cubes and other shapes. They did not need to be given the formulae to help them do this as they were able to work them out themselves by dissecting various shapes in the cones.

I was enthralled by the concentration and clear thnking etc involved in this. They enjoyed themselves in doing this, and I was thrilled to see in operation one of the keenest classes I can remember. There were six boys in the class today, not one of them with English as their first language, but the lesson was perfectly well understood in English with much involvement with the teacher. These boys are excitedly waiting for the UK maths challenge cut off points which will be announced with three boys expecting to obtain gold certificates, Max (Malta), John-Baptiste and Marc (France) Two other French boys, Jacques and Pierre-Antoine, are expecting a silver or bronze, depending on the cut-off points, as is as another French boy who is also doing well, Matthieu, as is Maxime (Russian his first language and also Spanish as he lives on Majorca).

It is a joy to see these boys so keen, alive and whole-hearted about their schoolwork in Mr Nicholas Lloyd's Biology also, the other class I am also sometimes invited into as an observer. I cannot get over the enthusiasm of these boys. I am unsure how much they realise how fortunate they are to be in such an environment so supportive of their learning, and in classes where they get so much indvidual attention.