The best mathematical tasks are often elegantly simple. Bells and whistles are not needed and, indeed, often they are distractions from the intended learning. To keep a task focused, thought should be given to the following questions: What do I want the children to learn?What might be the ‘bumps in the road’ that could cause […]
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Lucy Durrant, Assistant Head Teacher and Maths Lead at Winterbourne Junior Girls’ School in Croydon, tells us about how she and her colleagues use Inspire Maths and MyMaths to support their maths teaching. Tell us a bit about your school. Winterbourne Junior Girls’ School is a junior school in Croydon with over 270 pupils. In 2015 Ofsted rated […]
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The draft Curriculum for Wales has now been released, and as educators we finally have the What Matters statements for the new Areas of Learning Experience (AOLE). The Mathematics and Numeracy AOLE is segregated into four subsections of mathematics: The number system is used to represent and compare relationships between numbers and quantitiesAlgebra uses symbol systems to express the structures of relationships between […]
Read moreAs a department of the University of Oxford, whose mission is to further educational excellence, OUP believes in the important role of evidence of impact in improving learning outcomes across the country. We know how important evidence of impact is to support schools’ decisions around how they invest their time and money. Teachers can now […]
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Like almost everyone else in Maths education, I have recently decided to broach the ‘mastery’ word. It does feel a bit odd to do so, given that it’s been around at least since at least the 60’s, and I’ve never felt a need to use it before – despite having been an advocate of the […]
Read moreLines, squares or plain? The pages of maths exercise books, I mean. For years I have insisted that pages have to have squares. Without vertical lines as well as horizontal ones how could my students possibly draw all the right-angled triangles and bearing North lines and coordinate axes and so on that I would tell […]
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I thought I’d write today about the framework of Singapore’s School Mathematics Curriculum. The framework is captured in a well-known diagram that I’ve attached above, and it provoked a lot of interest among teachers when I was last in the UK in November. This was great to see, because this diagram really is at the […]
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“In order for teachers to develop the confidence to deliver a mastery curriculum we need to empower them to take risks in the classroom.” Rebecca Hamburger explains how to go from teacher to master: All too often when I am delivering whole school CPD, I ask the question: “Who loves maths?” and only a few […]
Read more At Coldfall Primary School, we recently adopted the Inspire Maths programme and teachers are working hard to bring the ‘Singapore’ or ‘mastery’ approach into their lessons. But what does teaching for mastery look like in the Singapore classroom? How do teachers use textbooks and how do they ensure that children are appropriately challenged and supported? […]
Read more Pupil progress shouldn’t be confused with curriculum pace: good progress in mathematics is not about moving on quickly Primary schools are still responding to significant changes to assessment and accountability put in place by the government over recent years. This started with the removal of National Curriculum levels and was followed by new key stage […]
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