Mastery
The new current National Curriculum promotes a mastery approach to mathematical teaching and learning. In essence, this means that teachers try to keep their class learning about the same aspect of mathematics in a lesson but differentiate by deepening the learning that children experience. We have developed two ways of facilitating this:
- Promoting the use of a fluency - reasoning - problem solving approach to our planning.
- Using Bloom's revised taxonomy to differentiate learning.
Fluency - Reasoning - Problem Solving
Fleuncy: More than simply the acquisition of basic mathematical knowledge and arithmetic skills, fluency involves being able to demonstrate the following skills:
- Efficiency - avoiding becoming bogged down in over complicated solutions.
- Accuracy - knowledge of number facts and relationships coupled with careful recording.
- Flexibility - having a toolkit of mental and written strategies suitable for the task at hand.
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Bloom's Revised Taxonomy
Bloom's revised taxonomy is a way of categorising the thinking that is required to complete different types of learning tasks. These are divided into two groups:
- Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)
- Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS)
The HOTS and the LOTS are divided into 3 further sub-groups as illustrated below. We use these to help us to differentiate learning in lots of curriculum areas, including maths.