Open your maths journal at one of the very first pages from back in September. Look at how you worked a problem then.

If that early version of you could sit in this classroom today, what would you do differently now?

Here are two pieces from a journal like yours, side by side. Look closely at what is different between them before you open your own journal, and be ready to say what changed and why.

September: place 0.25, 0.4 and 0.7 on a line from 0 to 1. The page shows three marks on the line and nothing else — no note of how 0.25 was fixed between 0.2 and 0.3.

May: share €36 between Aoife and Ben in the ratio 5:4. Every step is written out: 5 + 4 = 9 parts; 36 ÷ 9 = €4 for one part; Aoife 5 × 4 = €20; Ben 4 × 4 = €16; check €20 + €16 = €36.

Together we will agree what makes a journal piece worth choosing. Look at the three criteria on the board:

• a clear method someone else could follow
• it taught you something new
• you would be proud to show it

We will test one journal piece against all three, out loud, so everyone knows how to judge their own.

Then find one piece you would improve, and write exactly what you would change about it.

Stretch: for the piece you would improve, rewrite one line of it the better way, right there in your journal.