Does it all add up?
I have just finished reading the Review of Mathematics Teaching in Early Years Settings and Primary Schools by Sir Peter Williams and am left wondering if it all adds up.
Just to take some of the key points from a political standpoint:
There should be a maths specialist in every primary school in 10 years
Isn't that potentially two General Elections away? Never mind the advances in technology over that period that might/could/ought to change the shape of education, who is to say that the next Government will be of like mind? Would that we could effectively predict what skills and competences our young people will need by then. I don't suspect that it may not depend on their ability to ..play with shapes, time, capacity and numbers
The training of the maths specialists will start in 2009 so by 2019 the school down the road will have a maths specialist and two whole generations of children will have come and gone from that school without the benefit of this 'expert' help to do things that could easily (in authentic terms) be questioned as worthwhile or even necessary.
I have been unable to find out the actual figures for the training of ALL teachers in support of the old numeracy strategy and that, together with the training of co-ordinators working on the 'new framework' does add up to an awful lot of maths training over the last few years.
The review says:
All children should be competent in basic maths by the age of seven
Just about the same moment as our Continental neighbours are beginning the formal education of their young people. And what does this competence mean?
I do agree with the idea that we need to remove the negativity towards the subject. This is largely generated by a starved media who will latch onto what they consider to be a good story rather than bother to investigate the truth.
Even then I am just not sure about the context and content of the teaching. Teachers are only just beginning to get to grips with the New Framework for Maths (did you notice when it changed from numeracy to maths?). I just wonder how teachers will respond to this, some will obviously see the implications as a potential career move.
If this is the report on Maths then I wonder what Jim Rose will say in his Primary Review that moves things forward. And how does all this sit alongside the thoughts and ideas coming from FutureLab about re-imagining learning spaces and what effect will it have on the Primary phase of BSF?
posted by Doug @ 10:35
1 Comments
1 Comments:
A five day maths course for primary teachers was the training for the numeracy strategy and a lunchbox of in school materials.
The renewed Primary Maths framework training has been for coordinators only, so far. Also an online planning tool that didn't work.
Mental Maths - been there, doing that. it was after all a major focus of the Numeracy Strategy.
Held parents evenings about new calculation methods. Continue to discuss these at parents evenings.
Encourage parents to play with weights in the supermarket or send games home. - Doing that.
Leave primary school 'without fear of maths' - only if we're allowed to encourage the children to enjoy it and be successful. That takes time for those who find maths difficult. Which just might not match the further accelerated pace that is being demanded. More pressure is not what is needed either for the children or for the teachers. You can only go as fast as the children understand. Neither we, nor they need to constantly reminded of what they can't do in my opinion.
Perhaps the money would be better spent on improving the access to computers (Nintendo Ds/ Handhelds) so their use becomes ubiquitous just as adults use them. Which would have effects across the curriculum not just maths.
Which to me is the key. It's not about making maths the most exciting subject to teach and learn. It's about making learning exciting per se both inside and outside the classroom. A greater cross curricular flexibility would help here, coupled with some really thoughtful exemplars of cross curricular year group planning.
But as you mention a continental rethink might solve many of our children being put off learning at younger and younger ages.
Mostly it's too much too soon so the children end up doing it over and over again, especially if they find it difficult.
As you mention this approach seems to be going against the grain of all the other things that are slipping into place at the moment.
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