Tag Archives: Numeracy

Early years, Numeracy

Early Years Numeracy

The most recent Early Years Head Teacher meeting took place on Thursday 26th November at Pencaitland Primary School. A significant part of the meeting involved a presentation from Mhairi Stratton, PT at Humbie Primary and Joyce McIntosh, Early Years Support Teacher, both of whom have been involved in developing a series of CPD sessions to enhance learning in Mathematics in the Early Years. Mhairi and Joyce have worked closely with Dr Penny Munn from Strathclyde University to develop the programme of CPD and have piloted it in a number of nursery schools in East Lothian since August 2009.

The CPD is designed to help qualified early years staff understand the breadth of experience required for young children to develop mathematical thinking, to relate this to their own understanding of mathematics, and to enable them to articulate a clear rationale for the activities they use to develop mathematical thinking in their nurseries. The learning design is for three 2-hour interactive sessions, with observation tasks of around 30 minutes duration preceding each session. The material informing the CPD is based on ‘Early Years Mathematics 0-8’, published by Sage.

A full evaluation of the pilot will take place in spring 2010. If the CPD is found to be successful, the programme will be offered to nursery staff and primary staff working with children in the early stages, as well as those staff working in partnership centres. It is hoped that the CPD will be offered in 2010/11. One aim of the CPD is to inform the ‘Learning Stories’ method of Early Years assessment in maths, and there may be scope for a further session at a later date in which participants give feedback on the extent to which this has succeeded.

Further information about the pilot and the format and content of the CPD can be found in the presentation above.

Art & Design, Health & Wellbeing, Numeracy, Science, Social Studies, Technology

New SSERC Website

SSERC have launched their new website. Within the curricular resource section they have a section for Curriculum for Excellence. Within this they have the Experiences and Outcomes for the sciences, technologies, health & wellbeing, social studies, numeracy & mathematics and art & design.

For some of these Experiences & Outcomes, useful resources have been uploaded. Hopefully more and more will be added over time.

Numeracy

Numeracy Across Learning

This morning was the turn of the Secondary Teachers to attend the LTS Numeracy Across Learning engagement event. This was a useful opportunity to explore what Numeracy is and how best to support and develop it across the secondary curriculum.

You can view the PowerPoint from this morning’s session by clicking on the image above.

Assessment

Information on the new National Qualifications

There is more information regarding the structure of the new National Qualifications online than you might think. The Scottish Government website has an FAQ which outlines some of the interesting approaches planned. Some of the highlights…

  • National Literacy and National Numeracy will use a skills profile approach rather than units. The content of the qualifications will be based on the experiences and outcomes in literacy and numeracy in Curriculum for Excellence. The qualifications will be awarded on the basis of a portfolio of learner’s work collected across a number of curriculum areas and a range of contexts of learning, life and work.
  • The literacy and numeracy qualifications will be levelled and recognised at SCQF levels 3, 4 and 5.
  • National Literacy and National Numeracy will be available from S3 onwards.
  • National 4 courses will be assessed by teachers through coursework assessment. This will draw upon skills and knowledge developed across the course to provide challenging and motivating tasks for young people and adult learners. There will be no external assessment or grading at this level, but coursework will be assessed by teachers using SQA assessments and quality assurance processes to ensure maintenance of national standards.
  • National 5 courses will be assessed by teachers through coursework assessment and by an external SQA assessment (an examination, where appropriate). The external SQA assessment will require the learner to apply and/or integrate skills, knowledge and understanding in less familiar contexts and demonstrate deeper understanding and higher level skills. The external assessment will be graded.
  • There will be a new type of unit with an increased emphasis on skills development.
  • There will be flexibility in the number of units in courses across curriculum areas and subjects.