Our beliefs about the teaching of numeracy incorporate a whole-part-whole approach, where teachers model and teach strategies explicitly, and then students work independently, with a partner or with the teacher to practise the mathematical strategies taught. We value the inclusion of concrete materials into the mathematics classroom. Students from Grade Prep to 6 benefit from making mathematical models, experimenting with concrete materials as they problem solve, and learning by doing.
Numeracy Fluency Assessment (VCNA) – A whole school strategy
Our school has been involved in the development and roll out of the VCNA (Victorian Curriculum Numeracy Assessment). The NFA is a one-on-one maths interview with student and teacher to find the exact next point of learning for each individual student in counting, place value, addition and subtraction as well as multiplication and division. Students progress through NFA pathways at their pace from Foundation right through to Grade 6. Ongoing feedback is provided to students to clarify their learning and their next learning step.
Standards in the AUSVELS Mathematics domain are organised in three dimensions:
- Number – developing students’ understanding of counting, magnitude and order
- Space – developing students’ understanding of shape and location
- Measurement, chance and data – developing students’ understanding of unit, measure and error, chance and likelihood and inference
The proficiency strands describe how content is explored and developed and are embedded into the content descriptions. They are:
- Understanding
- Fluency
- Problem Solving
- Reasoning