Claim OwnershipThe Primary Maths Podcast
Subscribed: 7Played: 20
Subscribe
© Copyright 2026 Jon Cripwell
Description
The Primary Maths Podcast is a year-round maths podcast for teachers, leaders and anyone interested in how children learn mathematics.
Every Tuesday, join me, Jon Cripwell, for an in-depth interview with an expert voice from across education - teachers, leaders, researchers, authors and thinkers - as we explore what really works in primary maths. We dive into the big ideas shaping maths education, from maths anxiety and fluency to task design, curriculum, reasoning and problem solving.
Then on Fridays, Becky Brown and I return for Aftermaths — a shorter, light-hearted, practical debrief where we unpack the week’s key insights, and share clear takeaways for the classroom.. We also share listener stories and discuss The Maths of Life, amongst other topics.
Across the week, expect:
- Insightful conversations with the people shaping maths education
- Clear, actionable takeaways for teachers and maths leads
- The Maths of Life — the surprising ways maths shows up in everyday moments
- A weekly resource spotlight
- New episodes every Tuesday and Friday, all year round
If you’re looking for a thoughtful, practical teacher podcast that blends research, real classrooms and conversations that matter, this is the place to start.
Every Tuesday, join me, Jon Cripwell, for an in-depth interview with an expert voice from across education - teachers, leaders, researchers, authors and thinkers - as we explore what really works in primary maths. We dive into the big ideas shaping maths education, from maths anxiety and fluency to task design, curriculum, reasoning and problem solving.
Then on Fridays, Becky Brown and I return for Aftermaths — a shorter, light-hearted, practical debrief where we unpack the week’s key insights, and share clear takeaways for the classroom.. We also share listener stories and discuss The Maths of Life, amongst other topics.
Across the week, expect:
- Insightful conversations with the people shaping maths education
- Clear, actionable takeaways for teachers and maths leads
- The Maths of Life — the surprising ways maths shows up in everyday moments
- A weekly resource spotlight
- New episodes every Tuesday and Friday, all year round
If you’re looking for a thoughtful, practical teacher podcast that blends research, real classrooms and conversations that matter, this is the place to start.
90 Episodes
Reverse
Why do some pupils seem to thrive in maths while others struggle to access the same lesson?Jon and Becky discuss the latest PISA findings and the widening gap between higher and lower attainers, before exploring what that looks like in real primary classrooms. They talk about teaching for mastery, adaptive teaching, pre-teaching, the pressures of a packed timetable and why taking time to simply observe pupils can be so valuable.With place value being taught in classrooms everywhere at this point in the year, they also look at why it can reveal so much about what children genuinely understand, rather than what they’ve simply memorised.Plus, there’s maths in the wild involving an ultra-running teacher, a critically endangered parrot and around 70,000 pints of stolen Guinness.
How can the universe be 13.8 billion years old but the observable universe be around 93 billion light years across?In this AfterMaths Summer Special, Jon is joined by primary science specialist Sarah Hutson to tackle some of the wonderfully ridiculous numbers involved in trying to understand the universe.They talk solar eclipses, meteor showers, shooting stars, the speed of light, the size of the Sun and Moon, and why looking into space is really looking back in time.There is also Sarah's highly scientific game What on Earth Have I Drawn?, a surprising rise in colander sales, the reason total solar eclipses are possible, and an attempt to explain the expansion of the universe using an ant on an elastic band.By the end, Jon needs a lie down.Which is probably the correct response to cosmology.
Can maths help you win at games?In this AfterMaths Summer Special, Jon and Becky explore the line between luck and strategy — and whether understanding the maths behind a game can actually give you an advantage.They take in Rock Paper Scissors, Noughts & Crosses, chess, a deceptively simple counting game, the chessboard-and-rice problem, expected value, roulette and the mathematics hiding inside Monopoly.Along the way: why some apparently random games aren’t quite random, why exponential growth gets ridiculous remarkably quickly, why the house tends to win at casinos, and how a little probability might improve your chances during family game night.Maths can’t guarantee that you’ll win every game.But it might make people considerably less keen to play Monopoly with you.
Can maths really predict the future?We can predict the return of a comet decades in advance, but tomorrow's weather can still catch us completely by surprise. In this AfterMaths Summer Special, Jon and Becky explore why some futures are easier to calculate than others.From probability, forecasts and projections to Halley’s Comet, the phantom planet Vulcan and Edward Lorenz's discovery of chaos theory, they ask how much mathematics can genuinely tell us about what happens next.There's also the butterfly effect, an unexpectedly important rounding error, the difference between chaos and randomness — and the small problem that human beings refuse to behave like nice, predictable mathematical models.Especially children.So, can maths predict the future?Sort of. Which is perhaps the most mathematically appropriate answer possible.
Podcast Show NotesWhat makes a route the best route? The shortest distance? The quickest journey? The cheapest option? Or simply whichever one Google tells you to take?In this AfterMaths Summer Special, Jon and Becky explore the maths of getting away — from Google Maps and traffic predictions to queues, theme parks and an 18th-century puzzle that helped create an entirely new area of mathematics.Along the way, they discuss the Seven Bridges of Königsberg, Euler's ingenious solution and what it can teach us about problem solving: representing problems, working systematically, spotting patterns, simplifying and knowing when there might not actually be a solution at all.Plus: why the other supermarket queue is always faster, whether you should ever switch queues, 99 smartphones causing a fake traffic jam in Berlin, and the deeply troubling emergence of people forming orderly queues at pub bars.It's maths. It's holidays. It's considerably more Euler than your average trip to Orlando.
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States