Year 4 – 6 Numeracy Exploratory Study
Chapter Five: Summary
The teachers who took part in this evaluation reported that
they gained a greater understanding of number and how they
might teach it from their participation in the Year 4–6
Numeracy Exploratory Study.
This increased understanding of number included a sharper
focus on the progression of children's thinking about number,
as reflected in the Learning Framework for Number. The teachers
developed a detailed understanding of the different strategies
that children might use to solve a problem and of the number
knowledge underpinning these strategies.
These changes to the teachers' professional knowledge impacted
on their practice in a number of ways. The teachers identified
the results of the individual diagnostic interviews as having
the major impact on their practice. The diagnostic interviews
provided the teachers with information that led them to change
the organisation of their instructional groups. The teachers
reported that they were better able to focus on appropriate
strategy and knowledge development when working with children
at a similar level than when they had been working with mixed
ability groups previously.
The teachers reported that, in this altered instructional
setting, they changed their interactions with children by
encouraging them to explain their mathematical thinking when
solving problems rather than just providing the answer. The
teachers also talked about how they had changed the way in
which they selected examples to use in teaching number topics.
In order to encourage the children's mathematical thinking
and help build children's expertise in different strategies,
teachers moved from random to strategic selection of examples
to illustrate number patterns.
The teachers reported that they increased their emphasis
on number over the other content strands in mathematics and
adjusted their long-term plans and policies to enable this
to happen.
The facilitators played a key role in improving teachers'
professional knowledge and classroom practice. Teachers commented
on the usefulness of the demonstration lessons, the presentation
and discussion of the progressions of number knowledge and
strategies, and the in-class support. The importance of any
development being syndicate-based or school-wide and supported
by senior staff was evident in the comments from several teachers.
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 Appendices
A and B
Appendix A: Interview Schedule
and Appendix B: The Concept-maps (PDF, 818K)
Chapters 1 to 5
Chapter One: Introduction
(PDF, 15K)
Chapter Two: Methodology
(PDF, 11K)
Chapter Three: Concept-maps
(i) (PDF, 527K)
Chapter Three: Concept-maps
(ii) (PDF, 395K)
Chapter Four: Analysis
of the Teacher Interviews (i) (PDF, 25K)
Chapter Four: Analysis
of the Teacher Interviews (ii) (PDF, 26K)
Chapter Four: Analysis
of the Teacher Interviews (iii) (PDF, 20K)
Year 4 – 6 Numeracy Exploratory Study : Executive Summary
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