Each year at Bath University the Open University's Centre for Mathematics Education runs a one-week summer school for Key Stage 3 teachers as well as those aspiring to become teachers. For many of the participants, the course is a case of dipping their toe in the water towards a longer-term goal of taking an Advanced Diploma (or perhaps a masters) in Mathematics Education. The emphasis is on students actually doing maths themselves and then reflecting on the experience in order to explore different approaches to learning and teaching. The authors invited the participants to look back at the course, re-examine some mathematical ideas that had already cropped up and use them to try to make connections with algebra. This article describes such examples and concludes by discussing three useful issues about the learning and teaching of algebra: (1) Generalising; (2) Specialise before generalizing; and (3) Visualising. (Contains 1 endnote.)