ABSTRACT
In the UK there is a cultural view that some people ‘just can’t do maths’ and this is a great impediment to enabling many young people to be successful at mathematics. The idea of teaching for mastery has been gaining traction as a means of overcoming the difficulties experienced by many learners with regard to mathematics. The review of post-16 mathematics describes the state of mathematics in England as significantly different from that in most other advanced nations. For the mathematics teacher there is the opportunity to engage mathematical habits of mind in exploring the graphs particularly tinkering and conjecturing plus being able to use the exploration to gauge the extent to which learners had mastery with regard to graph interpretation.
