Numeracy

Numeracy requires meaningful concepts for numeration and computation to provide:

• Understanding number.
• Fluent processes in numeration and computation including: renaming, rounding, automatic access to basic facts and a range of algorithms for computation with larger numbers.
• A capacity to draw on these concepts and fluent processes to solve problems.
• Reasoning about the methods and solutions in problem solving.

We have a rigorous assessment process involving the 'PAT Maths' test developed by the Australian Council of Educational Research. This along with many other formative assessment processes and the NAPLAN test ensures we can clearly identify "What is known, the gaps, and what needs to be known." As with literacy, explicit instruction is a central strategy to good teaching practices in numeracy. We also embrace learning tasks which are open enough to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their understandings in a range of contexts through Inquiry Learning.

Staff continue to build on their skills in teaching the Big Ideas in Number. Through our work with our Numeracy Coach, teaching teams we will continue to focus on our students becoming numerate. To do this, concepts need to be experienced, strategies need to be scaffolded and everything needs to be discussed for them to learn with understanding. Our teachers check the student's understanding using formative assessment and then identify their next steps. Our intervention programmes work to support students who do not demonstrate strong conceptual understanding of the first two Big Ideas: Trusting the Count and Place Value. We continue to build on our use of the National Progressions in Numeracy to support students understanding their next steps in learning so they can articulate their own goals and progress made.