At Mount Barker South Primary School, we recognise that a whole school approach to Mathematics learning is necessary to support and challenge all students. We aim to teach Mathematics in a variety of contexts to allow for a deep, rich and meaningful understanding of language, concepts and development of skills.
Our whole school expectations for teaching and learning are in place to ensure all teachers are confident and competent in teaching Mathematics across the site with consistency in language and R-6 pedagogies. Mount Barker South is committed to building the capacity of teachers through high quality learning and the development of quality teaching and learning programmes
Students engage in daily Mathematics learning which generally includes:
- Warm Up
- Mathematics game
- picture book
- thinking task
- automaticity activity
- Body of lesson – This can look different in classrooms and change every lesson. The main part of the lesson can consist of different evidence based pedagogical practices. Some of these include
- Explicit instruction
- Problem solving/Open ended questioning
- Fluency based task
- Math’s Investigations
- Reflection – Teachers check in on the learning from the lesson and reflect upon previous learning as well as the learning intentions and success criteria. Students can reflect in multiple ways including verbal, written, body signs i.e. thumbs up down, traffic lights or digitally.
Visible Learning is woven throughout each Mathematics lesson with students supported to set, review and achieve their individual learning goals. Teachers use daily learning intentions and success criteria with research showing that students who regularly receive learning intentions and success criteria are:
- more focused for longer periods of time
- more motivated and active in their learning
- better able to take responsibility for their own learning.