You can have the best equipment...but

Whenever I visit a school, I ask to visit the ‘maths cupboard’. It is partly because the organization freak inside me wants to check out how others organize their resources, but it is mostly because I want to see how well used the cupboard is…

The truth is you can have the best resources in the world, but if they are not used you may as well have none!

From what I have seen, there are a couple of reasons why resources are not used:

1. They are too hard for teachers to access. Let’s face it nobody wants to walk across the school carrying 15 measuring scales. So, consider practical things like having a trolley there for teachers to use.
2. Teachers don’t know what is in there. I think it is a good idea at the start of the year to do a ‘tour de maths cupboard’. This could be virtual or it could be an in-person tour and is particularly important when you are onboarding new staff.
3. Conduct an annual audit of the ‘maths cupboard’ with images of what is in the cupboard sorted by topic. Then when the teachers are planning they know what is available to them to use.

The biggest thing with the cupboard is to make it accessible and appealing.

Organisation is super important

So, before you buy more equipment and spend more on resources, it might be worth spending some time supporting teachers to make the most of the resources you already have at school.