Education Archives - Number Hive App

Fluency Should Feel Like Confidence, Not Pressure

Written by Chris Hogbin on July 17, 2026. Posted in Learn & Develop.

For many students, the word fluency does not feel freeing. It feels like a stopwatch, or a worksheet full of facts they’re meant to know already. It feels like the awkward silence after a teacher asks a question and everyone else seems quicker. It feels like being exposed. That is a problem, because mathematical fluency is far too important to be associated with panic. Mathematical fluency matters deeply. Students need number facts, efficient strategies, and enough knowledge available that their working memory isn’t overloaded every time they meet a new idea. A student...

Picture of student pondering mathematics

When Answers Are Instant, Thinking Matters More

Written by Chris Hogbin on July 15, 2026. Posted in Learn & Develop.

I once watched a student forget the formula for the area of a trapezoid. That could have been the end of the problem. They did not have the formula, so they did not have the answer. But instead of stopping, they began to rebuild the shape. They split it into pieces they understood — a rectangle, a triangle on one side, another triangle on the other — and used the areas they did know to work out the area they had forgotten. It was slower than remembering the formula, but far more interesting. That moment has stayed with me because it captures something important about mathematics....

A Classical Approach to Mathematics Needs Better Tools

Written by Chris Hogbin on May 13, 2026. Posted in Learn & Develop.

There is a growing recognition within classical education that mathematics must be more than procedural competency and rote recall. Strong classical educators understand that the goal is not merely to produce students who can recite facts or execute algorithms, but students who can reason, discern structure, communicate clearly, and perceive the inherent order of mathematics itself. This is precisely where many modern mathematics resources fall short. Some programs pursue engagement while sacrificing rigor. Others pursue rigor while reducing mathematics to mechanical repetition. Many...

Recovering Mathematics in Classical Education

Written by Chris Hogbin on May 13, 2026. Posted in Learn & Develop, Uncategorized.

There is a growing resurgence of interest in classical education. In many ways, this is unsurprising. Parents and educators alike are sensing that something has been lost in modern schooling: depth, order, wisdom, attentiveness, and the formation of the mind itself. Classical education offers an attractive corrective. It reminds us that education is not merely about producing efficient workers or successful test-takers, but about cultivating thoughtful, articulate, virtuous human beings capable of perceiving truth and reasoning well. Yet within this resurgence, particularly in mathematics,...

Strong Foundations Reduce Math Anxiety

Written by Chris Hogbin on March 10, 2026. Posted in Learn & Develop.

Why Confidence in Core Number Operations Changes the Emotional Experience of Mathematics Math anxiety is often misunderstood. We talk about it as though it’s a personality trait.Or a mindset issue.Or a confidence problem. But in many cases, math anxiety is not primarily emotional. It’s structural. And one of the strongest structural contributors is weak foundations in the core number operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. What the Research Shows Research increasingly highlights the connection between early numeracy, later academic achievement,...

Image depicting how understanding numbers helps with their future pathway

Early Numeracy Skills Predict Future Achievement

Written by Chris Hogbin on March 2, 2026. Posted in Learn & Develop, Uncategorized.

Why Strong Foundations in Core Number Operations Matter More Than We Realise When I first started teaching, I thought I understood early numeracy. I knew how to teach addition. I knew how to teach subtraction. I knew how to move students toward multiplication and division. I could spot who was “good at maths” and who was “struggling.” What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was just how complex the development of early numeracy actually is — and how profoundly it predicts future achievement. The more I’ve learned over the years, the clearer this has become: Early maths...

The magic of World Maths Day: And other great ways to build fun and show the of math to your students

Written by allanfletcher919@gmail.com on March 23, 2025. Posted in Learn & Develop.

Mathematics is everywhere—from the angles of a soccer kick to the strategy behind a winning chess move. Yet, for many students, it can feel like an abstract subject, disconnected from the real world. That’s why events like World Maths Day are so powerful. They create an opportunity to shake up the way we teach mathematics, making it more engaging, relevant, and exciting for students. If you’ve ever struggled to get students to buy into mathematics, World Maths Day is your chance to change the game—literally. It’s an opportunity to show students the ‘why’ behind mathematics, even if that...

The Motivation-Achievement connection: What educators need to know

Written by Chris Hogbin on January 28, 2025. Posted in Learn & Develop.

When it comes to education, one of the most persistent questions is this: what drives student success? Is it their innate motivation to learn, or does academic achievement spark a desire to keep trying? A new study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology sheds light on this critical question, and the findings have profound implications for how we approach teaching and learning. The Research: Does motivation lead to academic success, or vice versa? The study investigated the relationship between two types of student motivation—autonomous motivation and controlled...

Demystifying Explicit Instruction: A Valuable Tool in Education

Written by Chris Hogbin on September 22, 2023. Posted in Learn & Develop.

There is a debate raging amongst educators that goes something like this. Explicit instruction or Inquiry based learning? This is an argument harming education in general for many reasons. The first being that we’ve set up a false dichotomy. There is a misconception in what explicit instruction actually means and needs clearing up! In the realm of education, strategies and methodologies are like a vast landscape, offering diverse approaches to help students learn. However, within this landscape, misconceptions often lurk, waiting to be debunked. One such misconception is the conflation...

5 Ways To Use Chat GPT-3 in the classroom

Written by Chris Hogbin on January 28, 2023. Posted in Learn & Develop.

The dangers and opportunities inherent in using Chat GPT-3 in the classroom are being debated hotly in education departments the world over. ChatGPT-3, the powerful AI-powered language model, is quickly becoming a game-changer in all walks of life – not least the education sector. When it comes to applications of Chat GPT-3 in the classroom, the jury is out on the potential impact the technology will have on our approach to teaching and on our students learning. But impact it will. Even the earliest release of Chat GPT-3 (short for ‘generative pre-trained transformer) has...

Tag: Education

Fluency Should Feel Like Confidence, Not Pressure

When Answers Are Instant, Thinking Matters More

A Classical Approach to Mathematics Needs Better Tools

Recovering Mathematics in Classical Education

Strong Foundations Reduce Math Anxiety

Early Numeracy Skills Predict Future Achievement

The magic of World Maths Day: And other great ways to build fun and show the of math to your students

The Motivation-Achievement connection: What educators need to know

Demystifying Explicit Instruction: A Valuable Tool in Education

5 Ways To Use Chat GPT-3 in the classroom

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