What a primary school teacher thinks of the new National Curriculum

The new national curriculum arrived with us all in September where did you look first? I looked at year 5 and 6, the year groups where I teach maths. What had changed? What were the raised expectations? Thinking of the least able pupils how would they cope with the new demands? After that I looked at the beginning, at what I now think are the three key points of the new curriculum, mathematical fluency, reasoning and problem solving.

The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately…

What does fluency mean? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as the ‘ability to express oneself easily and articulately’. Google’s definition includes the synonyms, ‘fluidity, effortlessness, ease, rhythm’. Wikipedia’s definition is ‘Fluency (also called volubility and loquaciousness) is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise.’ The latter definition is the one I believe fits best with fluency in a mathematical context. I want my pupils to be able to deliver the answers to complex problems demonstrating their expertise and understanding, to be able to do this quickly they need to have the facts at their fingertips, rather than counting all the time. So often I feel that they fail to see the connections between the different things that I teach, they see them as isolated from each other rather than integrated as I see them.

I've done the investigation when you add two odd numbers is the answer even or odd? Pupils have correctly established that the answer is even and yet they will calculate 53 + 51 and give the answer as 93 and fail to realise that cannot be correct for many reasons, odd + odd is even, the units needs to be 4, slightly more than 50 plus slightly more than 50 must make slightly more than 100.

Having identified the problem what strategies could I employ to support pupils?  I will be having a fact slot at the start of every lesson, drilling children in the number facts not only to 10 but also to 9, 8, and so on so that they know that 3 + 4 is 7 rather than calculating it. It’s not 1950’s education where drilling without understanding was the norm I want children to investigate to find the solutions but then practice to get the knowledge at their fingertips. I’ll be really emphasizing the even plus odd must be odd much more. Once 3 + 4 = 7 is firmly established I’ll be expanding it to 30 + 70 and 300 + 700 then to decimals 0.3 +0.4 and to fractions 3 ninths add 4 ninths, then to algebra 3a + 4a =.

In this way I hope that their ‘mathematical fluency’ will develop and they can answer increasingly complex problems with conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.

Julie Gallimore, Primary School Teacher

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from 10ticks!

Merry Christmas everyone hope you have all had a great year! Check out our Christmas video below which highlights some of the major changes to 10ticks over the last year and our plans for the next year.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from the 10ticks Team :)

Free Christmas Maths Worksheets

Christmas is just around the corner and to celebrate we are giving away some free Christmas maths worksheets. These are great fun and contain lots puzzles and games that are fantastic for consolidating basic maths skills. These are available to both parents and teachers with access to nearly 30 worksheets in total, perfect for keeping the kids busy over the Christmas break.

To get access to our free Christmas maths worksheets all you have to do is click on the link below and signup.

http://www.10ticks.co.uk/christmasworksheets/

Let us know you think of the worksheets.

Merry Christmas,

From the 10ticks team

White paper report on the UK’s new National Curriculum

At 10ticks we have been working hard creating and mapping maths resources for the new Curriculum set to come in next year for the UK. We also wanted to help teachers understand the new National Curriculum changes and what it will mean for their school. this is why we created a White Paper Report outlining the major changes and how best to prepare for them. It also gives examples of other countries experiences with Curriculum changes and what we can learn from them.

To view the White Paper Report just click on the link below.

http://issuu.com/tenticks/docs/whitepaperreport

Let us know what you think of the new National Curriculum and if you think the changes are a good idea.

Thanks,

The 10ticks team

Brand new maths worksheets available from 10ticks

We recently launched our brand new Annual Maths Worksheet Licence, which contains more than 3700 maths worksheets in one package. This covers every topic from Level 1 to Level 10 in the UK Curriculum, plus has maths worksheets ready for the new Curriculum set to come in next year.

The new Annual Maths Worksheet Licence is going to revolutionise the way we deliver our maths worksheets, giving schools and teachers more choice than ever! We have included 1100 brand new maths worksheets in the Annual Licence giving teachers more choice and flexibility. These build on our previous award winning maths worksheets to create an even stronger range of resources. Our maths worksheets comprise of 4 types of learning experience:

•          Traditional exercises to consolidate basic skills taught.
•          Investigations to let students explore mathematics at their own pace.
•          Puzzles involving key concepts centring around fundamental mathematical skills.
•          Games – Fun ways of reinforcing key skills without the monotony of repetitive exercise.

One of the biggest improvements we have made for our maths worksheets is the way you can search through them. We have created a brand new Search Tool, which allows you to search through this vast resource of maths worksheets in a matter of seconds, allowing to find exactly what you need when you need it. This will be a great time saver for teachers and will help take the stress out of find resources.

To find out more about what our new Annual Maths Worksheets Licence has to offer please visit http://www.10ticks.co.uk/mathsworksheet.aspx for more details. Alternatively you can contact a member of the 10ticks team and we will be happy to help.

Many Thanks,

10ticks

Bank of Education

Examination results bring huge pressure for the students, but in today’s accountable society, it brings pressure for teachers, head teachers, LEAs, Examination Boards and Governments! By being transparent on examination results the Government brings a stick to beat itself up with, to beat Examination Boards up with and everyone all the way down the food chain to the lowly teacher, with the teacher being the whipping boy for poor results (what is the opposite of a whipping boy?). Praise being given to those teachers achieving great things for their pupils –Definition of Great Things: moving a child from a Grade D to a Grade C. Where is the praise for moving a child from a Grade E to a Grade D?

It is no wonder that teachers constantly look for ways to beat the system, in most cases, honestly. And there are many ways to play the system. A Grade C is the Holy Grail for every school. These Grade C boundary pupils become the focus of every department resulting in an uneven distribution of the mathematics department’s resources. Typical tactics being, but not limited to: changing Examination Board, putting the best teachers to teach the sets which target these grade boundaries, extra lessons, early entries, withdrawal for targeted pupil one-to-one work etc.

For years I have advocated that if maths standards are to be upheld through the GCSE system then the Examination Board is key to this. The Examination Board cannot be in a competitive environment. The Examination Boards have little option but to erode grade boundaries as savvy Heads of Department tactically switch Boards dependent on the previous year’s Grade boundaries and pass rates. This erosion led to the introduction of the A* as too many achieved As to distinguish between them. Pressure on Examination Boards has led to a second successive year of a fall in the proportion of pupils achieving an A*-C grade. For maths this year the fall was by 0.8%.

When SATs where introduced, no one blinked twice at one Examination Board administering the process and controlling the grade boundaries. This is what has to be done for each subject at CGSE, with the Examination Board’s remit in upholding the standards, and if the standards drops, so does the pass rate. At least some of this is being addressed.

But what of the bigger picture? In 1998 the Bank of England was given operational independence over monetary policy and given sole responsibility for setting interest rates to meet Government inflation targets. Government setting interest rates was a headache and an election loser, so outsourcing this way was a win-win. It wasn't the Government’s fault if the interest rate was high/low (different people want different things!) and experts – yes people who knew what they were doing - were in charge! As Governments come and go there is an uninterfered constant.

So what has that to do with anything? A body of experts running independent of the Government helping to achieve National goals. Could that be transferable? A body of people that run education with no affiliation to Government, that sets the National goals, hence the curriculum and maintains the integrity of standards through the examination system. Real maths teacher working with academics towards a common goal without political interference. What about the current committees, we do have them..after all if Carol Vordermann can add and multiply she surely knows how to advise the Government on how to teach our children, just as George Clooney should be helping out the Health Department – he did appear in many episodes of ER.

So the make-up of this autonomous, apolitical Bank of Education. Why not just academics in this body? By the definition they are very clever people..and that is the problem, they need grounding. How does a successful curriculum work? I have addressed that before but in a nutshell it has to be deliverable. There are many elements to this, but academics have to be realistic about what can be achieved, (and realistic about what the country needs in a workforce) hence achieving a balance with long serving teachers. It would deliver a constant through the changing political world.

Politicians flit between different departments, becoming instant experts in a wide range of areas. If only we mere mortals could become experts in our fields so easily. The current Education incumbent seems determined to mold education in his own image. Possibly the Bank of Education needs to have stern words with him.

Ian Fisher, Managing Director of 10ticks

Looking at the new maths national curriculum for 2014

A message from 10ticks Director, Ian Fisher

Looking at the new maths national curriculum for 2014, my first thoughts are,  “A lot in a short time!”. Rather than a rolling implementation, Years 1, 3, 4 and 5 in Primary and  Years 7, 8 and 9 in Secondary are all going to have to be taught the new curriculum from September 2014. This is particularly an issue for Years 4/5 and Years 8/9 who will not have the benefit of being taught the skills directly before them, but jumping blind into the depth of a new rigorous set of skills.

For Primary Schools the maths curriculum has been laid out Year by Year, giving some structure and guidance to teachers. At secondary level it has been laid out, rather more unhelpfully, as a series of statements for all of KS3, with little guidance. If you want to see a helpful national curriculum for teachers, have a look at the new CAPS national curriculum for South Africa. This has been laid out with a lot of thought and guidance for teachers. Time has been spent putting this together to support the teacher and a more helpful time frame for rolling this out has been introduced. Lessons have been learnt from their first national curriculum disaster.

The main reasons for introducing a national curriculum is to standardize teaching, putting continuity across schools, and so that each maths department doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Arguments range from, a more transient population needs this to support their children, to publishers can put more effort into, and therefore get better quality from, their resources. This is an argument Australians are debating fiercely as they strive to get a national curriculum established. A lot of countries, such as Canada, who do not have a national curriculum, perform better than most in international league tables!

What can history tell us? The very first introduction of the national curriculum here in the 1980s lasted 3 years before being changed, followed by a further stable period of 10 years. In Malaysia their first draft of a national curriculum lasted 8 years without change, South Africa’s first draft 6 years. Basically new curricula don’t last long!

So why does a curriculum fail? We write our national curriculum and then we implement the national curriculum. Easy! To me, the content of the national curriculum should be decided jointly by academics and business leaders. Academics can be far too clever and subtle in their approaches, assuming that every teacher has the same knowledge base as themselves  (South Africa found this, to their cost). Sometimes the most academic educational friendly approach doesn’t work (government definition: not score highly in international tables), look at the international maths scores of Malaysia. Malaysia teaches the four rules using rote and mechanical methods, but does this consistently through the Primary phase. Methods that Malaysian teachers understand and that are delivered consistently to the children throughout this phase. No bouncing along on a number line! These children are highly skilled in solving these type of questions, but are they numerate? What does business require from our young population?  What do academics, who devise curricula, want?  This can be different. Surprisingly Malaysia is now turning to our maths approach, just as we turn to theirs!!

Let’s not get too hung up on the curriculum content. I have worked on 5 different countries’ maths curricula and all are appropriate, on the whole, for the country – in every country everyone has an opinion (it would be a dull world if they didn’t), so every curriculum has its detractors. So set aside the differences on the content, the success will come down to one thing. You can have the ‘best’ curriculum in the world, but if you don’t train the teachers, then inevitably, it will be doomed to failure. There needs to be a certain time frame for effective dissemination and a period of equilibrium to consolidate.

Academies do not have to follow the national curriculum. Is this to encourage all schools to change to Academy status as soon as possible? If all schools become Academies, then what becomes of the national curriculum?? Is the curriculum a new born dodo, with built in obsolescence?

So what have we now got in this country? A hastily implemented curriculum. With the speed the curriculum has been put together, followed by an abnormally short implementation period, I give this maths curriculum 3 years before it is overhauled. This doesn’t account for the uncertainty of politics (next election 2015) and the constant need for politicians to meddle in education. This can only lead to frustration for teachers given no direction and seeing no long term goals.

What would I be doing in a Primary School? Well, this year gives you a bit of leeway. The four rules are going to be taught quite mechanically. Vertical addition and subtraction will be the cornerstone, so start teaching it this way within the number boundaries that pupils are comfortable with, then when they are catapulted into the tens or hundreds of thousands next year, the method will be familiar and pupils will only have to deal with the increasing complexity of the number system. Likewise for short and long multiplication. Year 5 have to multiply a 4-digit number by a 1 or 2-digit number. So again work through the process with small numbers, with which they are familiar and work upwards. And repeat with division. Learning the mechanical methods this year may help with being thrown into the deep end next year and help your pupils (and you) survive!

What would I be doing in a Secondary School? When talking to teachers in South Africa, Malaysia, India and South Africa they all cast envious eyes to the UK. They are forced to teach by Grade (Year) curricula. This can be very inappropriate for some children. They love the fact that we can set by ability and teach to an appropriate level. Does this mean a return to mixed ability teaching? This could mean a huge leap in content for some Year 9 children in 2014. I would be looking at the content for the KS3 and devising a Year 7, 8 and 9 curriculum based on the statements. With this in mind I would be looking to teach children in Year 7 and 8 a cross-over curriculum next year, so that pupils are not wildly off key in 2014.

At 10ticks we are dedicated to deliver to you the maths materials you need. We will be working feverishly over the coming years to ensure that you have the latest curriculum requirements covered. We already have a great deal of the material written for the new curriculum. We introduced the low cost annual plan to take into account all this uncertainty. If you subscribe to the 10ticks annual package, not only will you be able you get them started this year, you will have all the materials you need to deliver the maths curriculum next year, as we update and add to the materials available to you every year.