Comments on: School Mathematics Project Cards

By: PeterJ

PeterJ — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:35:00 +0000

I’m 34 and I was in junior school in the middle 80s. I remember the SMP cards! It was a wonderful idea that allowed kids to work at their own pace. I was never particularly good at Maths, but I do remember enjoying working my way through the cards. My family moved in 1986 and my new school used the Fletcher books, which were not as good for me personally. My secondary school used the SMP books, which were also good, but by then it was all a bit beyond me LOL. I have very happy memories of being at school in the 80s. In fact, being a kid in the 80s was such a joy, I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

By: Sammie Elestial

Sammie Elestial — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:27:38 +0000

I would love to get hold of a complete set. I now teach maths for a living! I attended a school in Peterborough where they used SMP cards then we relocated to Devon where they did not. I was 18 months ahead of my classmates as I had been able to learn at my own pace and loved maths. Unfortunately I moved to a school that believed we should all learn at the same place so I sat and did very little for almost 2 years; getting into trouble for being disruptive because I was bored.
These were early examples of active learning – I can still remember sellotaping my fingers together for a maths experiment and having to lie on the floor to be drawn to work out estimating distance! Everyone in my class fully engaged with maths from an early age yet these sets are no longer available!!!!!
I’d love a set if anyone is selling one or has a scanned set… If you can help me sam.elestial at colchester dot ac dot uk …

By: John Ellis

John Ellis — Mon, 02 May 2011 09:01:16 +0000

Wow – great comments and seems like everyone was fond of these!

We used to call them Fletcher Cards at our school not sure why and being a real saddo i just loved them. We used to have races to see who could get them done the quickest and whp was on the highest level. We were only allowed to get one sheet at a time but to advance better I used to pick two at a time and start doing the second sheet straight away.
And yes i agree with you all that repetition of these helped undermine my understanding of maths in a good way.
Just taken my eldest son out of state school into a private school and they do a similar thing – they call it mental maths so no working out on paper just lots of repetition of varying structures of maths problems over and over again. they do it in morning studies and for home work.
oh and by the way if anyone says to you at primary stage (son is that private school doesn’t make a massive difference tell them they are way off the mark1

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 19:10:35 +0000

I remember these they were awesome we used to be jealous of the children who got onto the more advanced levels. Awesome things they should bring them back for sure kids these days use calculators instead of their brain to claculate thigns….

By: Sioux

Sioux — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:20:12 +0000

Spike, I remember the orange Fletcher maths books. Unfortunately didn’t come across the coloured cards but wish I had. We were the first year in senior school to be taught SMP maths in our newly found status as ‘Comprehensive School’, changed from ‘Secondary Modern’ back in 1975. Gosh, I feel old!

By: Big Boo

Big Boo — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:26:41 +0000

Good question Rachel. My primary school certainly had a similar set of cards for reading and literature.

I believe they were called School House (but I may well be wrong), and they came in a big corrugated plastic box which was style to look like a school building. The cards were colour coded, and I think the idea with them was you were supposed to put an acetate sheet over the top of the card and fill in the blanks with a special pencil, which could be wiped off the acetate when completed. That’s about all I remember of them though.

And FYI, I’m based in Berkshire in Southern England, and we most definitely used the term “Maths” for Mathematics. I always thought “Math” was the US way of saying it.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:49:20 +0000

My question on this is about a similar color-coded box set that I used in elementary school I tried to do a search on it, but I no clue as to the name of the actually product, or the company that made them, so my searches have been a giant fail.
However, reading these comments make me think that the two types of school box sets were done by the same type of company. Maybe The only difference with these box sets is that they weren’t math, they were reading/literature. There cards in the box were different colors: orange, red, blue, green, brown, purple…they were stories on cards. I remember liking the purple one the best I think, because they were the more Fantasy genre type of stories.

(I’m also wondering what region/country this site is based in, I remember that some do say “maths”, instead of “math”. )

By: Pablo

Pablo — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:24:23 +0000

I used these cards when I first began teaching in 1979. I am looking for copies of them as a supplement to the scheme I use now, but without any success.