Maths Mastery Curriculum

In 2010 Big Maths introduced the idea that the bulk of a cohort (any child without a genuine learning difficulty for maths, or what looks like a genuine gift for maths) should be brought to the same point in the numeracy learning journey. This ‘pre-managed spread’ allows the teacher to guide them forward together, as one large group. In 2014 the English government ‘introduced’ this idea as an Asian approach called ‘mastery’, elements of which have since made their way into Wales and Scotland. Most schemes and approaches that existed before the word ‘mastery’ agenda took hold were adapted to tick the boxes of the education authorities. Big Maths wasn’t changed, therefore appearing to some that it wasn’t a mastery curriculum, yet, in reality, it is the original UK maths mastery curriculum!

The principles of Big Maths prioritise the following features:

• A curriculum that recognises a Basic Skills journey and a Wider Maths journey to provide clear progression and expectations. Children’s progress on their Basic Skills journey should always inform (and be prioritised over) the Wider Maths skills that they can be introduced to.
  
  
• We believe that all children can attain the expected journey being outlined. Indeed, with any curriculum this shouldn’t just be a ‘belief’, but rather the rationale that should be evidenced in the curriculum design. In Big Maths you can always see why all children can attain the progression in fluency being described. 

• For this to work, then the early stages of the journey must be light and ‘doable’ for all. Big Maths advocates a relatively low age-related expectation in the early years. This allows children who start school with relatively low attainment to be quickly brought into the expected journey for fluency with number. This is achieved by having a strong focus (i.e. intensity and consistency) on the teacher-modelling and the child copying, with explicit instruction of doing and understanding from expert to novice. We advocate the ‘I do’, ‘We do’, ‘You do’ model of teaching.

• Again, for all this to work, then children who have mastered the expectations of fluency ahead of the rest of their cohort (or ahead of the fluency journey expectations) are stretched with their mathematical thinking into other areas of the maths curriculum (for example, problem-solving, maths investigations and connecting their number fluency to shapes, fractions, etc.). These children do not simply press on with the fluency journey.

• However, there may be a small group of genuinely elite mathematicians (and it may well look as if they are gifted) who are ahead of the expected fluency journey. This small group provides a management challenge to the teacher (as do those with a genuine special need) and may well need different input to the main group.

• The outcome of the successful implementation of this curriculum is that the teacher can give input on fluency journey progression to one large group. A common error of a mastery curriculum implementation is that the teacher gives input to one large group where there is a spread of number ability. The teacher then attempts to differentiate through group work after the main input. A successful mastery curriculum provides the teacher with a ‘pre-managed spread’ (due to the reasons described above), not an unmanaged spread. In a well-implemented mastery curriculum, the teacher should have a reduction in workload in this regard (preparing fewer inputs and managing less group work).

No Maths Marking!

‘Big Maths Beat That!’ isn’t like any other assessment and tracking system. It is at the very centre of the school’s entire maths curriculum. It is the engine room of the pedagogy, as opposed to ‘bolt-on tracking’. Yes, you can also say goodbye to marking! If you were told to throw out all your tracking systems (unless you desperately wanted to keep them for your own purpose), then BMBT would remain. When the curriculum, pedagogy, and tracking are one, then you have an easy and natural response to the question, ‘What impact is our curriculum having on our children’s learning?’

Simple Assessment of Progress

The BMBT challenges are at one with the curriculum design and learning journey that children enjoy, whilst also allowing adults to assess progress and attainment in relation to age-related expectations. This means that at any moment in time, we can see if a child is ‘on-track’, ‘off-track’, or ‘ahead of track’. Perhaps most importantly, however, the challenges inform us of each child’s reality, where they have learning gaps, so we can precisely address their needs, irrespective of their age!

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Differentiation is Dead!

Differentiation is dead, controversial? Read on…

I was an NQT in 1993. I can still recall the mixture of emotions in the last week of the summer holidays, preparing to launch into my teaching career proper. The usual format was to spend the day excitedly cutting out giant letters for display and writing names on books/pegs/trays etc. only to be followed by a night of waking up in a cold sweat, having dreamt – yet again – that I’d lost control of the class. Except, one night I slept really well; I was so happy because I’d had the brilliant idea to call my higher-ability group ‘Smarties’! Of course, this meant calling my middle ability group ‘Skittles’ and my low ability group ‘M&Ms’. By definition, I had already told two of my groups that I didn’t consider them ‘smart’. I shudder to think of the long-term damage being a member of ‘The M&Ms Group’ had on those poor children (now aged 34), but that was the way of it at that time. Every primary teacher had fixed ability groups, notwithstanding the occasional battle for individual promotion/relegation from group to group.

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