Numeracy at Canadian Lead PS

Our Vision and goals
At Canadian Lead Primary school there is shared vision and goals for Numeracy teaching and learning. Numeracy teaching is purposeful with teachers at Canadian Lead providing opportunities that assist students to make connections and applying their mathematical knowledge to the world around them.

At Canadian Lead Primary School all students are seen as Mathematicians. They develop efficient mental and written strategies to solve problems. They are assisted to explain and prove their mathematical thinking, being reflective in nature about their own learning, both verbally and in written form.

Goal Setting
Teachers set student numeracy goals regularly through student conferencing using our Numeracy I can statements. This helps students to monitor their own progress and feel a sense of achievement. Students are encouraged to extend their thinking while teachers foster openness, dialogue, mathematical reasoning and trust through authentic tasks related to students’ development.

Planning and Implementing Mathematics
Teachers at Canadian Lead plan weekly in Professional Learning Communities to create personalised programs for students by assessing their strengths and needs and then establishing programs to extend students’ capabilities.  A range of formative and summative data is used including the Mathematics Online Interview, NAPLAN, PAT maths, Essential Assessments and weekly teacher cross checks to inform teacher planning. Learning intentions, success criteria and reflections are built into lessons, thus ensuring that teachers are building on numeracy knowledge that students already possess and targeting teaching to the needs of our students as individuals. Our focus includes a ‘non-negotiable’ uninterrupted daily block of time dedicated to numeracy whilst teachers also provide students with additional opportunities for numeracy integrated into other curriculum areas including Investigations in P-2 and by engaging in Education Research Projects in Years 3-6.

Teacher professional development
Teachers at Canadian Lead engage in professional development regularly. Our Learning Specialist and Numeracy Leader ensures professional learning is evidence based and engaging for all staff across the school. Teachers have regular opportunities to collaborate and discuss mathematical concepts and monitor the implementation of these concepts from the curriculum.

Mathematicians Notebook

Canadian Lead Primary School has been working alongside Literacy and Numeracy consultant Andrea Hillbrick. We have been working together on the implementation of Mathematicians Notebook. Mathematicians Notebook is a blank scrapbook where students can showcase their best maths work and learning. They can also use this book to store strategies and reminders of key concepts. This book will be used to not only display their best Maths learning but it will also be used as a reminder and own personal dictionary for Maths. Students are extremely engaged and excited about their Notebooks.

All teachers and students will have their own Notebook that will carry throughout their years of schooling. The notebook will be an essential learning tool in Mathematics at Canadian Lead Primary School.

What do the students think of Mathematicians Notebook?

Grade 1 student: “I love everything about my Mathematicians Notebook because I get to do fun activities and Maths things in it. It helps me with my Maths learning.
Grade 1 student: “I really like that I get to be a Mathematician and put my learning in there. I like that I can show people my learning.”
Grade 4 student: “I love our Mathematicians notebooks because you get to show all of your learning in them. They are so big that we can fit heaps of our learning in them.”
Grade 6 student: “Our Mathematicians notebooks are great because you can go back and see what you have done over the years and it’s a really fun way to learn about Maths.”
Grade 6 student: “Our Mathematicians notebooks are interesting and enjoyable, they are very helpful when you are stuck.”

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EMU- Extending Mathematical Understanding

EMU, Extending Mathematical Understanding is an accelerated intervention program with a philosophy that all children have the right to learn successfully, are given response time and are also given several opportunities to engage in high quality mathematics activities that are designed to meet their particular learning needs. This program is enhanced by adapting a whole school approach to learning and teaching mathematics.

The EMU program approach responds to the fact that not all children thrive when learning mathematics at school. These children benefit from being identified as early as possible (grades 1 and 2) and are offered an alternative approach that gives them a mathematical boost. The EMU program assists students who are vulnerable in the area of number, place value and the four operations. The EMU group consists of three students who are identified as priority students through the Maths Online Interview. These students attend half hour EMU sessions, four days a week for a minimum of twelve weeks. EMU is not a stand-alone program, but it builds on and is coordinated with classroom mathematical programs and with lots of communication with classroom teachers to ensure similar approaches and teaching happens in the classroom environment as well. We are fortunate to have three EMU trained teachers at CLPS.