Focus on Primary
learn more about MathsMap from its designers and the schools who have helped in the pilot project, and to get hands-on experience in using the toolkit.
Pilot schools have been using MathsMap’s APP framework and resources with the Steps to Success to improve lesson planning and assessment, and to identify the skills gaps of individual pupils and provide step-by-step learning plans to address them. They are reporting greater staff confidence in the maths subject area, better and faster lesson planning, and early signs of improvement in pupils’ basic maths skills such as number skills.
Structure for teachers
MathsMap takes as its starting point the framework Assessing Pupils’ Progress (APP) which was developed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) and National Strategies (NS) on behalf of the UK Government. The outcome of the current National Curriculum Review will be introduced in schools in 2014. Until then, APP provides a familiar structure for teachers to guide their practice in the classroom.
MathsMap also contains the resources developed by QCDA and NS (such as Pitch and Expectations, Overcoming Barriers etc) so teachers do not have to find them elsewhere. The unique mapping aspect of the website enables teachers to drill down very quickly through Assessment Focus and Learning Objective to the relevant resources and Steps to Success without having to know their way around the large amount of materials developed for this purpose. Wherever possible, MathsMap even opens the resource at exactly the right page.
Based on Classroom experience MathsMap’s approach and the mapping of its wide range of learning resources are based entirely on real experience in real classrooms in primary schools throughout the UK. In particular, it brings together the 25 years’ maths teaching experience of international maths consultant Ray Maher (already known for 10 Maths Miracles, Busy Bees and the Numeracy Passport) with the current experience of schools which have
supported the development and trial period of MathsMap. The new website; planned and managed by former maths teacher and schools data expert Mike Powell of Mike Powell Associates, now means that any primary maths teacher with internet access can instantly use the system and its linked materials.
Steps to success
Laura McAllister, Numeracy Co-ordinator, and her colleagues at Lady Margaret Primary School in Southall have worked closely on MathsMap’s development with Ray Maher since June 2011, in particular helping to plan some of the Steps to Success, and became keen for it to be completed so that they could start using it. Today MathsMap is used by around 30 staff throughout the school, whom are using it to plan from Assessing Pupil Progress. They find it useful as an assessment tool for identifying individual children’s skills gaps and using the Steps as a check list to plan ways of narrowing them. Laura says: “When a child just isn’t meeting a Learning Objective, MathsMap helps us pinpoint why they can’t meet it, and shows a set of clear Steps to Success to help them to get there. “Its key benefit for me has been that it makes it possible to plan effective lessons much more quickly. Before, I would spend a lot of my Sunday planning the lessons for the coming week.
Sometimes colleagues who have their own systems in place for planning are initially reluctant to change, but then they find that by using this tool they can save four or five hours a week. Now there’s a buzz around the school about MathsMap - it’s brilliant and I love it!”
Central importance of maths teaching Ray Maher said: “In the last few weeks, we’ve seen an impassioned national debate about the central importance of maths teaching in the national curriculum and in people’s lives, first in the Daily Telegraph’s Make Britain Count campaign and more recently with the launch of the new National Numeracy charity. Both of these have pointed to the importance of maths teaching at primary school level in laying the foundation for everything that comes after. “Our pilot schools are telling us that in MathsMap, we’ve put together a clear and simple primary maths resource which is already helping teachers to plan their teaching and assessment more effectively and more confidently, and which offers excellent value for money for school budgets.
“We’re looking forward to taking it out on the road to introduce it to many more teachers, because in a time when so many people are concerned about maths, we believe that we can make a difference.”
May 2012
www.education-today.co.uk
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