So What?

Am I happy with the results?  Somewhat.  I'm disappointed that one student went backwards, but I'm not totally surprised.  This student attends workshops happily enough.  She has moved up within each workshop area, but doesn't seem to retain her learning for very long.

The workshops system has worked really well.  Students attend happily.  It is a much more intimate set up, meaning that no students are able to drift to the back and become unengaged.

I've put plenty into the students learning their tables.  I'm sure this has resulted in better Maths learning, as it reduces the cognitive overload students experience when they're using addition to work out Proportion and Ratio or Multiplication strategies.

At the moment I have about seven students teaching workshops for measuring time.  They're LOVING it.  What's more, all students are getting workshops virtually every day.

I still have concerns about the rigidity and "closedness" of this system.  The more I read and think about this, the more I believe we need more open ended rich tasks to be included in Maths.  This could be next year's Inquiry; finding a better balance.

Here is a link to an article about the importance of Maths problem solving that I found interesting.