Numeracy Learning with the Victorian Curriculum 2.0
At Osbornes Flat Primary School we use the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 to drive our learning sequence. The curriculum gives a great understanding of the core mathematical skills required for greater mathematical knowledge to be built upon.
We provide explicit instruction around the 6 mathematical substrands of the curriculum including: Number, Algebra, Measurement, Space, Statistics and Probability. Our school provides this instruction through the lens of the Big Ideas in Number, paying particular attention to devoting teaching efforts into the key ideas for student learning at each year level.
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Foundation and Year 1
Trusting the Count
A foundational skill that underpins all learning in number and by extension, maths in general. Trusting the Count is the extent to which an individual student believes that when a collection is counted, that its total does not change, regardless of the arrangement of this collection. It is also the knowledge that students learn about numbers in the same way as a toddler learns about colours.
This means that as humans, we learn that, for example, the colour yellow is attributed to objects that are yellow and that the word yellow is learnt through our experiences with yellow objects.
At Osbornes Flat Primary School, we pride ourselves on taking the time needed for students to develop their sense of number by providing an extensive amount of purposeful and structured experiences, informed by the ideas underpinning the Cognitive Load Theory.
Our students learn the numbers 0-20 in lots of different ways, allowing them to access visual representations of each number to 20 for any problem they encounter. This skill is known as subitising.
The skills of trusting the count and subitising are crucial pre-requisites for learning about Place Value.
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Year 1 and Year 2
Place Value
The next step for students who have mastered Trusting the Count, is the idea on which our whole number system is based, our own Place Value system. Place Value is defined as the individual value of a digit, within a number.
Students learn about how the Place Value system works, starting with the skill of bundling and unbundling to represent numbers beyond ten. Students learn about composite units that make up numbers, which assists in adding and subtracting numbers. The main goal in Place Value is that students understand that ten of these represents one of those.
At Osbornes Flat Primary School, we explicitly teach students about individual units within each number and provide significant time for students to experience this.
Students gain practical knowledge around bundling to the nearest ten, counting on from the largest and adding by place value parts. The bar model is a useful tool for our students to visually understand numbers in their parts.
Learning about Place Value builds knowledge sequentially from trusting the count and ensures students are ready to unpack the next Big Idea of Multiplicative Thinking.
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Year 3 and Year 4
Multiplicative Thinking
After students have mastered the skills and relevant knowledge of Trusting the Count and Place Value, they are then ready to begin understanding the key components of the next Big idea, being Multiplicative Thinking.
This idea requires explicit and deliberate teaching sequences around the multiplication strategies to 10. It removes the idea of rote learning of multiplication facts and focuses on the key idea that for one of these there are many, using groups and arrays.
At Osbornes Flat Primary School, students are provided with the time needed to think flexibly about multiplication and division problems, being really deliberate in their attempts to solve these problems and reason with their answers.
Multiplicative Thinking is a core component to learning the next Big Idea of Partitioning.
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Year 5 and Year 6
Partitioning
The final Big Idea in Number for students in Primary School focuses on the knowledge, skills and concepts surrounding fractions, decimals, percentages, rates and ratios.
This idea is known as Partitioning. It builds on the key components of Place Value and Multiplicative Thinking, extending students understanding of ‘ten of these is one of those’, to ‘one tenth of these is one of those’.
Students engage in understanding fractions as being portions of a whole and that these are represented in different ways.
At Osbornes Flat Primary School, we explicitly teach students about the inverse relationship between the number of equal parts and the size of each part, and that relative size is important. We ensure that students understand how decimal fractions are an extension of the place value system.
Teaching and Learning in this way ensures that students are best prepared for learning Mathematics in High School, setting our students up for great success.
