Some reflections on maths and teaching for Mastery. ● High expectations should be placed on all pupils regardless of perceived prior attainment. ● Mixed attainment groups are desirable and can offset limiting 'ability grouping'. ● Following a scheme is NOT teaching for Mastery. Teaching for Mastery is an approach, an ethos and a deliberate choice teachers make. ● Teaching should be in small steps, think if teaching for Mastery as teaching until children have mastered it. ● Prioritise retrieval of place value, the four operations, fractions and geometry. ● Ensure children are fluent with number facts and develop number sense to free up cognition to attend to problems. ● Explicitly teach vocabulary - do not leave it to chance. ● Carefully designing questions, with variation, is a great way to deepen and strengthen understanding in lessons. ● I do, you do approaches engineer higher degrees of success through worked examples. www.mrbeeteach.com 🐝
Interesting comment about mixed ability. How do you square that with comments from elsewhere about mastery requiring homogenous (as near as possible) groupings?
Mathematics Consultant
2moCaution needed - The I do, you do brigade develop mimics not necessarily children with secure understanding. Sadly have seen too many children copy and repeat not knowing why something works and not able to apply in a similar but different situation.