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Critical observations about lesson comparison

Nearly all lessons contained discussion episodes in which teachers used learner responses to develop shared interactions, language and meanings, while teachers directed learners towards salient features of examples and methods. However, the more setting took place, the more likely it was that PLAS would miss out on challenging tasks, opportunities to reason, discussions of implications of tasks done and mathematics learnt, and the sense of meaning that comes from how mathematics fits together.

All teachers used comparisons of objects, methods, implications, definitions & potential applications as prompts for students to think about and articulate their understandings.

Where connection and integration aspects of discussions did not happen it was usually because of poor behaviour. In those circumstances teachers appeared to focus on affirming effort, attention and behaviour, and then announced 'next lesson we shall...' at the end. Poor behaviour was only a feature of a few lessons, and took place across all kinds of groupings.

Even in these schools, which had committed themselves to raising achievement for PLAS, the pressures of staffing and the school's need for test results meant that when groups were set, the lower sets had a higher proportion of split groups and marginalised teachers. By 'marginalised' we mean: those excluded from the core group by being part-time, or by teaching mainly another subject; those who marginalise themselves through disagreement with the department decisions; those who do not 'hang out' with the core group for other reasons.