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MyMaths.co.uk – A Review

March 8, 2008 By 13 Comments

I have introduced a fantastic resource into both of my recent schools over the last 2 years. It continues to impress me to this day and it’s about time I wrote a glowing review of it!

MyMaths.co.uk has been around for a couple of years now and continues to grow. When I originally bought it for my previous school it consisted of a series of excellent lessons with interactive elements for use on the IWB or a pupil’s individual computer.

Sample lesson:

MM Lesson

There are also a wealth of excellent games focussing on all manner of mathematical skills.  These are tremendously popular with pupils and work brilliantly on IWBs.  A particular highlight of these are the leaderboards, showing the highest score of the day and of all time for all users.  It’s a great incentive trying to beat other schools!

Over the last year online homeworks have been introduced.  Each pupil is given an individual login so that their progress can be tracked.  All of your class and pupil details can be uploaded with a simple csv file.  This gives you the ability to set whole classes homework tasks and to monitor their progress online – no marking required!  These combine with the excellent ‘Booster Packs’ designed to move pupils on to KS3 Levels 4 and 6, and GCSE levels C, B & A*.

The Management Console where you can assign tasks etc:

Pupil Feedback:

Overall MyMaths is a comprehensive suite of lessons, games, homeworks and other tools that covers the entire UK National Curriculum for Maths.  The resources are well written and of a much higher standard than alternatives such as SAM Learning, it is also much easier to navigate than many of its competitors.  Our pupils now complete more homework than they used to and have been spotted playing on the games in spare time during other subjects!  A considerable number of pupils come back to the department during their lunchtimes to work through the Boosters.  I must add that this includes a number of pupils who were not greatly engaged with Maths previously and who are now excelling.

At a cost of £400 per year, MyMaths represents excellent value for money.  I am expecting to get much more use out of it now that I have taken delivery of 6 eeePCs for my classroom.  Initial tests show that the site scales well to the size of the screen and I expect pupils will use it in the majority of my lessons.

So a gushing review, but one that is deserved, well done to the team behind it and long may the improvements keep coming.

Amplify

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  • A_lycks

    So then Mr Stucke, I’ve toyed with the mymaths homeowrk idea. Setting tasks worked well with our GCSE and Sats groups using tasks from the booster packs and getting them to complete these to support the work that they’d done during a booster session. As these weren’t compulsory lack of access to a computer was less of an issue and those that wanted to could acces the tasks using the schools afterschool provision. but if we moved totally to online homeworks then what do the students with no internet access at home do? What do you do to get around this issue?

  • http://www.mrstucke.com mrstucke

    Hi Alex, how are you? I always assume that no-one I actually know reads this thing.

    I am still searching for the answer to the homework problem.

    When we’ve set them on mymaths we have always given the pupils at least a week to complete them and expected those without access to use the library computers at some point during that week.

    I suppose a limited number of printed copies could be done, a homework tends to run to only two screens.

    We’ve also tried posting old fashioned paper homeworks home this term, there has been a marginally higher completion of these but still not great.

    I still don’t think we can move to totally online work in the environments we teach in.

    Perhaps no homework is the answer?

  • http://www.mrstucke.com/2009/01/18/maths-20/ Maths 2.0 | The Masterplan

    [...] but overall, not good enough.  And if I want to use these tools, I’ll buy the material (MyMaths for example), I don’t have time to make it myself, and my results rarely look [...]

  • Zdenka Evans

    Hello, this is a bit out of date so I wonder since this review if you’ve implemented a vle solution in your school? Our maths dpt is VERY enthusiastic about myMaths but we are trying to get the vle off the ground and this is pretty much a standalone vle which you can’t integrate into our system(company doesn’t want to know).

    If you have a vle, do you still pay subscription to the above,or does it run alongside it?

  • http://www.mrstucke.com MrStucke

    Hi Zdenka,
    I’ve just signed up my new school to MyMaths, despite the fact my new role includes developing a VLE. I have not seen any Maths materials available for VLEs which would even come close to the quality that MyMaths provides. I would agree that it is inconvenient having yet another website & set of logins for pupils, however I would say it is worth the hassle. When we have a VLE up and running properly I would hope the Maths department will have prominent links out to MyMaths. If they are using it to set home-works they could leave notes on the Maths VLE page whenever they do so.
    As you will see from some of my other posts, I’m not the biggest fan of straight-jacketing staff into a single VLE solution and insisting they use only the tools within it. If you know of any VLE based Maths software that’s worth looking at (I assume it would have to be SCORM compliant) I’d be interested to hear. I would like to see VLEs more as the central communication hub for schools and for classes within that, where staff can communicate with students and can link to appropriate resources for their studies (MyMaths in this case). Perhaps MyMaths could allow the possibility of hyper-linking to specific parts of their site, this would make this a more seamless process. The fact MyMaths is Flash based makes this more difficult, but I wouldn’t have thought it impossible.
    Dan

  • http://www.mrstucke.com MrStucke

    Just spotted that you can now hyperlink to a specific part of mymaths e.g. http://mymaths.co.uk/gold/negatives/negatives1.html (obviously login is required)

  • mrbailey

    I love mymaths and have  set up online homework for the school. homework rates and content covered in lessons has increased in quality. does it improve thinking skills? does it improve exam success? does ofsted like it? we’ll see by august, but if anyone has any knowledge of year one and two progress after implentation…could you please reply thanks

  • Richard

    I should like to add I find the technical implementation of the website appalling!
    The style of the site being Flash Only and generally Windows ONLY is dreadful. Implicitly the site is reinforcing the “Microsoft” TAX most parents families pay- but forcing people to have purchased from windows o/s from Microsoft to access this site
    In my house ALL the PC’s are Linux based and while my operating systems happily can use the Flash plugin (from adobe) this site patently refuses to run – as the underlying technology to build the site is Microsoft ONLY – (.apsx files).
    It is very sad -as there are MANY other OPEN SOURCE ways of achieving what this site is trying to do.

  • http://www.mrstucke.com MrStucke

    Harsh words!

    I have to say I haven’t tried it with a Linux machine, but in it’s defence it works fine on a Mac, and fine with IE, Firefox, Chrome & Safari – so there are non-MS options.

    I’m no fan of flash though so I can see you point, and it prohibits iPhone / itouch use which would be a potential bonus with pupils in this day and age.

  • mrbailey

    just got back aqa mod 1 results back and my express set got 23 A* after doing no written homework and pure mymaths. year 10, 33 in the class who enjoy the homework. best results ever.

    replied to myself, hows it going for everyone else?

  • http://mrstucke.com Dan Stucke

    via email:

    Dear Daniel,

    I noted Richard’s fustration for being unable to use the my maths site using linux.
    To be honest we are but it is understandable as most sites assume that everybody has Windows.

    We are a windows free house and have been using Ubuntu Linux for 4 years.
    I have found a way of using Mymaths for my son and I would like to share it with all other linux users.
    Unfortunately I can not post a reply to Richards therefore I hope that you might be able to pass on my advice described below:

    How to access MyMaths- for Linux users

    1. install wine
    2. download firefox for windows version (not linux)
    3. install firefox for windows under wine
    4. run firefox windows and seach for mymaths. Log in as normal

    I hope that the above will work for others as it does for us.

    God Bless.
    Florin Burlacu

  • Ronnie

    Ive just been offered a free trial of my maths and wondering how other subject leaders are getting on with it.  Is it raising attainment in your school, is it worth the money?
    Ronnie

  • http://www.mrstucke.com Daniel Stucke

    Raising achievement is always hard to pin down to one particular aspect of what we do. But I’d still say that it was well worth the price. Although it’s now used in collaboration with other websites such as http://www.mangahigh.com and http://www.khanacademy.org I think it still represents good value for money. I find it particularly great for use in class on the whiteboard. Clear explanations / diagrams to use for demonstration and the homeworks etc make a good, short set of questions for pupils to complete in class. It’s dramatically cut down on the volume of photocopying / textbooks we use which makes it worth the price on that point alone.