I got the news this week that I'll be teaching A Level maths next year (that's 16 - 18 year olds) as well as my usual 11-16 year olds. In a school like mine, with a big 11-16 group and a small sixth form, it's a pretty big deal - everyone wants to teach A Level! But I'm a bit terrified.
I keep on hearing that there's so much to get through in A level, and that you've got to just teach from the textbook to cover everything, so don't take risks and anyway they're too old to appreciate any fun stuff. This seems so untrue; I remember A level as being reasonably light on content, to be honest, and I don't see why a 17 year old wouldn't enjoy an open-ended, creative, problem solving style lesson as much as a 13 year old. Maybe it's just too hard to come up with lessons like that for that level of material? I don't know. I just know I've got a lot of reading and thinking to do before I'll accept that I've got to teach from the textbook all lesson, very lesson! Surely that's not what our brightest and best mathematicians should be experiencing?
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