Maths should be done in small orange books with squares. It’s the law!”

This was just one of many similar responses to an image I posted on Twitter showing the neatness of a student’s work. That work had been completed in a book that was set out with lines, not squares, and I may as well have claimed that the Earth was flat and the sun revolved around it, such was the outrage at this seemingly simple switch.

I should have foreseen the reaction: we maths teachers are quite tied to our squares. And I confess that ditching squares was not part of my original plan to improve the presentation of work in our department. But having made that switch out of necessity, I now see the light - ditching squares might be the best thing you do this year.

The plan was never intended to be as radical as switching to lined books. Since becoming head of faculty more than a year ago, I have made many changes to day-to-day practices, for both staff and students. In terms of exercise books, I stopped buying small orange A5 ones with squared paper and switched to larger A4 ones, with the rationale that students would use the space better and have a smaller collection of books at home to revise from.

The other consideration was that I felt a significant number of students (mainly boys) saw their small orange maths book simply as a jotter - something they could pull out of their bag to scribble in. It frustrated me that they seemed to take more pride in the appearance of their written work in geography, English or history.

Taking pride in maths leads to better engagement and attainment

When we started with our new A4 squared books, students were initially unsure of how to present their work. Some staff took it upon themselves to fold the page in half, thus creating two columns, some to ruling off after each topic. Both approaches created issues in terms of space left for staff to write model solutions and provide corrections where necessary. It wasn’t ideal and, as a faculty, we were debating different ways to ask students to improve their presentation - new, bigger books were not working.

The solution eventually arose through an error. When some new exercise books arrived, we opened them to find the size of the squares was different to usual: 5mm instead of 8mm. Initially, I didn’t see the problem - in fact, I thought this would make it easier to draw scale drawings. But some of the students went berserk.

Attempting to appease those who had issues with the new books, I hunted around our storeroom and found some A4 yellow books with lines. They were what our post-16 A-level maths teachers used to give out before I had moved to paper and folders a year or so previously. I figured these would be fine, but initial reactions from the already disgruntled students were negative: “We don’t do maths on lines” or “It feels wrong”.

I told them it was that or the small squares and urged them to give it a try. Lo and behold, a week later, the students who were so vociferous in their hatred of the tiny squares were loving the lined books. So much so that their peers were asking for lined books, too. Their pride in their books had increased, and their work was far neater and looked more professional.

This is important because taking pride in maths leads to better engagement and thus better attainment. It was a chance discovery, but switching to lines has had a huge impact.

Falling into line

Suddenly, I started questioning the whole tradition of squares: why do we use squares in the first place? Is it so that we can draw charts, graphs and tables neatly? Is it because it is something that is introduced in primary school when teaching place value? Is there an unwritten rule that maths should be completed on squares? Did a Renaissance mathematician - Euler, perhaps - write on squares and, lo, it came to pass?

But then, exam papers don’t have squares. We don’t expect our students to put a digit per square. Our A-level students don’t use squares. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t use squared paper myself…

This year, I have taken the next step towards lined books for all students. I ordered both lined and 8mm squared books, in a 75:25 split. I let staff choose which type of book they would like to try and asked them to feed back on presentation of work, which is one of our whole-school policies.

I am pleased to say that, so far, the students and staff have responded positively. In fact, I’ve had to order more lined books, while there are still lots of squared ones left in the storeroom. Where squares are necessary, students complete charts, graphs and tables on squared paper or worksheets, which are then glued into their books.

So small, orange books with squares may well be the law in some schools, but that is no longer the case in ours. And we could not be happier. Why don’t you give it a go?

Graham Walton is head of maths at Tupton Hall School in Chesterfield @mr_g_walton