Mastery and the new curriculum

Resources Our resources and many that we mention (and probably some we have forgotten to mention) will be available at our Maths Hub page on the NCETM website. Follow us on twitter too! @EM_MathsHub

The content and principles in the 2014 mathematics curriculum reflect what is found in high performing education systems internationally, i.e. Singapore, Japan, South Korea and China. The OECD suggests that by age 15 students from these countries are on average up to three years ahead in maths compared to 15 year olds in England. OECD – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development That is a whole Key Stage ahead!

Principles of Mastery Teachers reinforce an expectation that all pupils are capable of achieving high standards in mathematics. The large majority of pupils progress through the curriculum content at the same pace. Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support and intervention. Teaching is underpinned by methodical curriculum design and supported by carefully crafted lessons and resources to foster deep conceptual and procedural knowledge. Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts in tandem. Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge, and assess pupils regularly to identify those requiring intervention so that all pupils keep up.

Principles of Mastery The _______ of these approaches is to provide __ children with full access to the __________, enabling them to achieve c_________ and c_________ – ‘mastery’ – in mathematics, rather than many failing to _______ the maths skills they ____ for ___ ______. Print to fill in by people

Principles of Mastery The intention of these approaches is to provide all children with full access to the curriculum, enabling them to achieve confidence and competence – ‘mastery’ – in mathematics, rather than many failing to develop the maths skills they need for the future.

Fluency What is Computational Fluency? “Fluency includes three ideas: efficiency, accuracy, and flexibility: Efficiency implies that the student does not get bogged down in too many steps or lose track of the logic of the strategy. An efficient strategy is one that the student can carry out easily, keeping track of subproblems and making use of intermediate results to solve the problem. Accuracy depends on several aspects of the problem-solving process, among them careful recording, knowledge of number facts and other important number relationships, and double-checking results. Flexibility requires the knowledge of more than one approach to solving a particular kind of problem, such as two-digit multiplication. Students need to be flexible in order to choose an appropriate strategy for the problem at hand, and also to use one method to solve a problem and another method to double-check the results.” Russell 2000

  Good practice in primary mathematics: evidence from 20 successful schools Read through the key findings. Highlight anything that you think may have influenced the new curriculum or anything you find interesting.

Curriculum changes The 2014 national curriculum for mathematics has been designed to raise standards in maths, with the aim that the large majority of pupils will achieve mastery of the subject. Mathematics programmes of study state that: All pupils should become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and are able to recall and apply their knowledge rapidly and accurately to problems. The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. When to progress should always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those pupils who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on. For many schools and teachers the shift to this ‘mastery curriculum’ will be a significant one. It will require new approaches to lesson design, teaching, use of resources and support for pupils.

What changes? How do the new curriculums compare? Calculator skills moved to KS3 Higher expectation for understanding of vocab and symbols Formal written methods of addition and subtraction in Year 3. Standard algorithms for multiplication and division in Year 5.

What are the expectations?

What are the expectations?

Mastery Indicators Teaching methods is not the important point here though as the three aims of the new curriculum are to develop fluency, reason mathematically and solve problems. The new ‘outcomes’ are indicators that the children have mastered that skill.

Mastery Indicators Please take 5 minutes to fill in your Progress sheet for this session.