Barbara Young
Barbara Young is the leading author of each of Jugglers' texts.
From 1980-1991, she was a member of the Spode Group, a group of teachers drawn from schools, colleges and universities throughout the UK, who believed that we should be teaching pupils not only basic mathematical concepts, but how to use these concepts in solving practical problems. The group produced both relevant and stimulating material for use in the classroom.
Barbara was an advisory teacher during the year the National Curriculum was introduced. She spent much of her time advising schools on how to adapt their mathematics schemes to deliver the National Curriculum. She was a strong believer in the use of practical problems, puzzles, games, etc as a major part of mathematics lessons. At this time, she met Andy Hamilton, who persuaded her to join with him to produce material using the approach she had advocated.
Barbara and Andy enjoyed working together to produce and trial the mainstream texts for Y7 and Y8. It was a very successful and productive partnership and both were delighted with the motivational effect on their students. However, Andy was destined for higher things. Already a highly successful Head of Mathematics, he accepted the challenge of turning round a weak department, which left him less time to devote to produce new material. Today he is a highly respected Head Teacher, who is frequently invited to other countries to advise on turning round failing schools.
Turning down the chance of becoming a head of department, Barbara instead preferred to concentrate on working with students to produce highly motivational material. She passionately believed that low attainers could achieve much more. She took a bottom Y9 set and abandoned the Y9 teaching syllabus for this group. She tried out all sorts of things with this group. Some worked. Some didn't. At the end of the year, she had a group that loved maths. However, this group had to take the end-of-year maths exam with the rest of the year. They had not done any of the Y9 syllabus, but all of them did better than half of the set above them! Ouch. So, Barbara turned her hand to working with Low Attainers in Y7 and Y8.
Whilst Barbara was working on texts for GCSE and A-Level, she and Bob Percival agreed to work together to produce a GCSE text for low attainers. Bob had been inventing interesting material for these students for some time. Bob, a Head of Maths, has been an advisory teacher, run sessions for able children and is an enthusiastic ATM member. The Sureshot Guide, produced by Bob and Barbara, has been highly successful with disaffected students and those in Pupil Referral Units.
Juggler's material for low attainers was seen being used in several schools by Anita Straker, head of The Numeracy Strategy. She invited Barbara to produce a catch-up course for less able Y7 students using material from her low attainers texts. Springboard 7 was sent out to all secondary schools, free of charge in 2001.
Barbara was an Open University tutor-councillor for 26 years. She has run sessions for able children and workshops for teachers.