Mathematical tasks are purposefully designed to engage students in their learning, as they develop, consolidate and establish the 'big understandings' in mathematics. At Southmoor we aim to provide a learning experience for all students that;
- Begins with high quality teaching
- Ensures clear Learning Intentions and Success Criteria
- Promotes a 4 part lesson structure
- Uses learning continuums to encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning, recognizing their own strengths
- Develops in each child a range of deep strategies, aiming for rich mathematical understandings embedding the proficiency strands (Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning)
- Fosters independent and assessment-capable students
- Uses Rich Assessment data to inform purposeful teaching and learning
- Is differentiated to meet the learning needs of all students enabling a personalised thread incorporating student voice, choice and ownership
Rich Assessment Tasks including P-2 Maths Online Interview and 3-6 On Demand testing, guides planning for the teaching of Mathematics at Southmoor for all students. Southmoor's Mathematics overview has been developed using Learning Intention and Success Criteria statements, which highlight the thorough lines of mathematical understandings and support the progressive stages of development from Foundation through to Level 6 and beyond. Teachers develop appropriate quality learning experiences and tasks using a weekly planner, building upon the big understandings, and use the outcomes from these tasks to determine student progress in relation to the Victorian Curriculum content descriptors. While topics have been divided up by terms throughout the year for planning purposes, the content will often be interwoven with topics featured in different terms. The selection of topics in different dimensions will often complement each other (for example; length, addition and subtraction. Fractions will relate well with clocks, area etc). The proficiencies of Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning are fundamental to learning mathematics and working mathematically, and are applied across all three strands: Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability.