Writing
Notes from the chalkboard.
Short essays on how I teach — the habits, the diagrams, and the small shifts in thinking that make physics and maths click.
- 6 Jun 20263 min read
The homework battle is almost never about homework
The nightly standoff over maths homework exhausts everyone and rarely improves a single mark. Most of the time the fight isn't about the work at all — and seeing what it's really about changes how you handle it.
#parents#mindset#teaching→ - 2 Jun 20262 min read
When a parent tells me their child 'isn't a maths person'
It's almost always said kindly, often by a parent protecting their child from pressure. But it's a quiet self-fulfilling prophecy, and in six years of teaching I've yet to meet the child it was actually true of.
#parents#teaching#foundations→ - 22 May 20263 min readphysics
Exam nerves are usually a timing problem in disguise
Most students who 'freeze' in exams know the material fine. What they haven't practised is the clock. Here's the two-pass routine I drill before every board exam.
Grade 9-12#exams#mindset#study-skills→ - 18 May 20262 min readmaths
The slope of a line is a story about change
Before calculus is a single rule to memorise, it's a way of noticing how fast things change. Here's how I introduce it without a single formula on the board.
Grade 9-12#calculus#intuition#teaching→ - 27 Apr 20262 min readphysics
A wrong answer is the most useful thing in the room
Most students hide their mistakes. The ones who improve fastest learn to read them. Here's the diagnostic habit I teach from day one.
Grade 9-12#teaching#mindset#exams→ - 30 Mar 20262 min readphysics
Draw the picture before you write the physics
Nine times out of ten, a stuck physics student doesn't need another formula — they need a diagram. Here's the two-minute habit that unsticks most problems.
Grade 9-12#physics#problem-solving#mechanics→ - 10 Mar 20262 min readphysics
Field lines are a map, not a thing that's really there
Students picture electric and magnetic field lines as physical threads running through space. They're a drawing convention — and confusing the map for the territory causes a specific, predictable set of mistakes.
Grade 11-12#electromagnetism#physics#intuition→ - 27 Feb 20262 min read
The most useful question to ask your child after a test
Parents almost always ask the same first question when a test comes home, and it's the one that teaches the wrong lesson. There's a better question, and it costs nothing to switch.
#parents#teaching#mindset→ - 11 Feb 20262 min readmaths
The chain rule is a story about layers
Students learn the chain rule as a formula to apply and a function to spot. It's easier than that: a composite function is an onion, and you differentiate it one layer at a time, outside in.
Grade 11-12#calculus#problem-solving#intuition→ - 20 Jan 20263 min readmaths
Integration is just adding up an absurd number of thin slices
The integral sign scares students into thinking it's a new and difficult kind of object. It's the oldest idea in maths wearing a fancy symbol: cut a thing into slices, add the slices up.
Grade 11-12#calculus#intuition#problem-solving→ - 2 Dec 20252 min readphysics
Newton's third law trips up everyone — here's the sentence that fixes it
'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction' is true, memorable, and the cause of more confusion than almost any line in physics. One missing phrase is the whole problem.
Grade 9-11#mechanics#physics#intuition→ - 6 Nov 20252 min read
Past papers are a diagnostic, not a dress rehearsal
Doing thirty past papers and feeling more tired is not the same as getting better. The students who improve treat each paper as a list of things to fix, not a score to collect.
#exams#study-skills#problem-solving→ - 14 Oct 20252 min readphysics
A circuit diagram lies about distance — and that's the point
Students try to read circuit diagrams like maps, worrying about which component is closer or which wire is longer. A schematic throws all of that away on purpose, and understanding why makes circuits click.
Grade 9-12#electromagnetism#physics#problem-solving→ - 22 Sept 20252 min readmaths
Radians look strange until you see what they're actually measuring
Students meet radians as a weird unit full of π that exists to make exams harder. They're the opposite — radians are the natural way to measure an angle, and degrees are the arbitrary ones.
Grade 11-12#trigonometry#intuition#calculus→ - 19 Aug 20252 min readphysics
Every projectile is two boring problems wearing a trench coat
Projectile motion looks intimidating because the path is a curve. The trick that unlocks the entire topic is realising the curve is two straight-line problems that have nothing to do with each other.
Grade 10-12#mechanics#problem-solving#physics→ - 8 Jul 20252 min readmaths
Factorising is pattern-spotting, and patterns can be drilled
Students who 'can't factorise' usually can — they just haven't been shown that there are only a handful of shapes to recognise. Name the shapes, drill the eye, and the panic goes away.
Grade 8-10#algebra#problem-solving#study-skills→ - 15 Jun 20253 min readphysics
Voltage is pressure, current is flow
Electricity feels abstract because you can't see it. The water analogy makes it concrete — as long as you know exactly where it's telling the truth and where it quietly lies.
Grade 9-12#electromagnetism#physics#intuition→ - 20 May 20252 min readmaths
Every trig identity is hiding in one triangle and one circle
Students try to memorise a long list of trig identities and inevitably blank in the exam. Almost all of them fall out of two pictures you already know — so learn the pictures, not the list.
Grade 10-12#trigonometry#problem-solving#study-skills→ - 27 Apr 20252 min readphysics
Units are the cheapest mistake-catcher you'll ever own
Students treat units as the boring thing you tack onto the end for a mark. Used properly, they're a free check that tells you a wrong answer is wrong before the examiner ever does.
Grade 9-12#physics#problem-solving#study-skills→ - 2 Apr 20252 min readphysics
Friction isn't the villain students make it out to be
Textbooks introduce friction as the force that slows things down and steals energy. That framing quietly teaches students to resent it — and to misread half the problems it appears in.
Grade 9-11#mechanics#physics#intuition→ - 9 Mar 20252 min readmaths
SOH-CAH-TOA is training wheels — the unit circle is the bike
The mnemonic gets students through right-angled triangles and then abandons them the moment an angle goes past 90°. Here's the picture that actually carries trigonometry the rest of the way.
Grade 9-12#trigonometry#intuition#teaching→ - 14 Feb 20252 min read
Re-reading your notes feels like studying. It mostly isn't.
The most popular way to revise is also one of the least effective. Here's why re-reading fools you, and the slightly uncomfortable habit that actually moves marks.
#study-skills#exams#mindset→ - 21 Jan 20253 min readmaths
The minus sign is where most algebra quietly dies
I've marked thousands of algebra scripts, and the single most common lost mark isn't a misunderstood method — it's a dropped or mishandled minus sign. Here's where they hide and how I drill them out.
Grade 7-10#algebra#problem-solving#study-skills→ - 8 Dec 20242 min readmaths
Solving for x is just undoing it in reverse order
Most students treat solving an equation as a set of tricks to remember. It's actually one idea: whatever was done to x, undo it — last thing first, like taking off your shoes before your socks.
Grade 7-9#algebra#intuition#problem-solving→ - 3 Oct 20242 min read
Let young learners be wrong out loud
The quietest classroom is rarely the one learning the most. The habit I protect more than any other in young children is the willingness to say a wrong answer in front of everyone.
Grade K-5#foundations#teaching#mindset→ - 12 Sept 20242 min readmaths
Counting on fingers is not a problem to fix
A worried parent asked me to break their daughter's habit of counting on her fingers. I asked them to leave it alone — and here's the longer answer I wish I'd had time to give.
Grade K-5#foundations#teaching#intuition→