1. Curriculum for Excellence Maths and Numeracy
School:

2. Principles for Curriculum Design1
Personalisation and Choice 2
Breadth 7
Progression
Active Learning 3
Coherence 6
The 7 principles for Curriculum Design are generic – here is how they work for maths.
(choose to discuss them in any order and link any which you feel would work well together).
Personalisation and Choice
Teachers/school’ have opportunities for personalisation and choice – with support e.g. Example of year plan – can choose order/position of topics depending on other factors (projects, links with other curricular areas)
Child’s/class’s choice – e.g. “What do we want to learn about?”, “How are we going to present our findings?” – managed by teacher. Examples of assessing using “say, write, make, do” and allowing teacher/children to choose how to present what they understand. Needs to be managed by the teacher to ensure a spread of ways of learning/assessing as different ways suit different children.
Breadth
Giving children a wide knowledge – lots of experiences – across a level (and across lots of different topics)
Coherence
See how learning joins together – making the links (really important as this is how problems often work in real life e.g. Baking a cake uses measure, time, ratio and proportion)
Depth
Not just skimming over learning; making sure that children have a sound, deep understanding of number and mathematics
Challenge and Enjoyment!!!!
Children need challenge – not just bigger numbers or more practice! (games, ICT, Challenging Able Mathematicians, application of learning)
Problem solving/explaining your learning to others
Having fun – important that children enjoy maths and have a positive attitude towards maths (and important that parents reinforce a positive attitude to maths – not “I can’t do maths”)
Relevance
Why are we doing this?
Links to real life – relevant application for age and stage e.g. In nursery context might be snack time, house corner, playing outside, birthdays etc.
“Numeracy across Learning”
Progression
A clear pathway of progression of learning (supported through guidelines)
Building on prior learning
Relevance 4
Depth 5
Numeracy across Learning
Challenge and Enjoyment

3. Progression Early Level (approximately nursery – P1)
First Level (approximately P2 – P4)
Second Level (approximately P5 – P7)
(but earlier or later for some)
Third/Fourth Levels (approximately S1 – S3)
Children may be “experiencing” some of the next level before being “secure” at their current level. For example, children may be working on shape at a higher level where relevant.
It is important that children progress at a pace suitable for them, rather than being driven by these timelines, so some children will take longer to be secure at a level and others will move on quicker (we do not hold children back, nor do we push them on until they are secure).
It is important that children are secure before they move on or they will not have a strong foundation of understanding on which to build the new learning. This will cause problems later on if we move them on too quickly.
Information about where a child is will be passed from teacher to teacher and between establishments to ensure a smooth transition of learning.

4. First Level Number Outcome
I have investigated how whole numbers are constructed, can understand the importance of zero within the system and can use my knowledge to explain the link between a digit, its place and its value.
MNU 1-02a
This is an example of an outcome (first level number and number processes).
The language (in blue) shows how learning in maths and numeracy focuses on how children learn (investigated, rather than told), the importance of understanding (rather than just being able to repeat facts) and what we want children to be able to do with what they have learned (again, reinforcing understanding and application).