At BWPS all children are encouraged to think mathematically and demonstrate understanding, rather than just follow processes and scripts.
We believe that just teaching to remember processes is limiting. Bloom’s Taxonomy has been relevant for staff when developing our understandings of this belief. Bloom’s illustrates a continuum of thinking from remembering to the higher level thinking skills of creating, evaluating and analyzing.
Teachers at BWPS plan for and set targets for student learning in the three different components of Maths:
- Problem Solving finding a way to apply your knowledge to solve unfamiliar types of problems. Problem Solving demonstrates your understanding of Reasoning and Fluency.
- Reasoning the process of applying logical thinking to a situation to select the correct problem solving strategy (and associated model) from your Maths toolkit. This is the bridge between Problem Solving and Fluency.
- Fluency being able to recall facts quickly and accurately in multiple contexts.
Teachers at BWPS utilise Big Ideas in Maths to complete in-depth preparation, identify teachable moments as they occur and monitor and assess student progression. A 'big idea' is defined as a statement of the student’s thinking/idea that is central to the understanding of mathematics.
We believe the following Big Ideas are central to students’ progression in becoming numerate:
Counting
Three Components of Counting:
- Rhyme
- One-to-One
- Cardinality
Place Value
Six Components of Place Value:
- Count
- Name/Record
- Make/Represent
- Calculate
- Rename
- Compare/Order
Addition and Subtraction
- Relationship between + and –
- Place Value Patterns
- Patterns
- Unitising - Repeated Addition and links to Skip-Counting (intro to multiplicative thinking)
- Associative and Commutative Rules
Multiplication and Division
- Relationship between x and ÷
- Place Value Patterns
- Unitising – skip-counting, groups of, rows & columns, L x W
- Associative and Commutative Rules
- Proportional Reasoning
Fractions/Partitioning
- Fractions are relative to the whole
- Relationship between fractions and ÷ and x
- Relationship between fractions, decimals, percentages and ratios
- Decimal link to place value (as well as place value patterns)
- Common whole required to + or – fractions
- Understanding of numerator and denominator