From the Director of Curriculum & Innovation 

Building Maths capacity in students

In my role as Director of Curriculum, it is my responsibility to advocate for curriculum, and in this article, I want to advocate for the divisive subject of Maths. As an experienced Maths teacher, I have had many conversations with students and parents about the value of Maths and have heard many different perspectives. 

People generally fall into three categories:

• Maths is painful and irrelevant. Some people view Maths as a subject to endure, something that they feel they never understand and isn’t really relevant to them.

• Maths is practical. Maths is an essential utility in life. It is important to have a good grounding in the practical aspects of Maths, such as time, mortgages, understanding taxation and general arithmetic for things like recipes and money. This group may also view maths as an essential tool for securing a good job.

• Maths is fun. Another group of people see Maths as a joy of puzzles that need solving. While the practical aspects of maths are helpful, the joy comes from Maths for its own purpose. Seeing Maths similarly to how others may see Art, Sport or Literature.

   

Our challenge as teachers is to meet all students where they are in their Maths and support students to grow in their mathematical capacity. You may read in the newspapers each year about how Australia compares to other countries in Maths, and concerns about dropping standards. This year’s NAPLAN results show that Emmaus students on average perform 10.75% higher than the state average which is significant and something to be proud of. However, we still have room to grow in our Mathematics teaching and it is a priority as a school to improve our Maths practice to give every student greater confidence and opportunity to succeed in this foundational subject.

This year, the two Junior School campuses have implemented new programs for Mathematics teaching, which are based on the principle of Explicit Direct Instruction. These programs are very intentional about how Maths is taught. (If you would like to look into them more, they are ‘Explicit Maths Program’ at Brooklyn Park and ‘Prime Maths’ at South Plympton). These programs focus on a very clear and precise explanation of concepts and practice to build fluency for students. They also include review processes that consistently revisit concepts over time. This keeps concepts fresh in students' minds, and each time they retrieve concepts from memory, they build stronger connections and a deeper understanding.

Explicit instruction can provide students with an excellent foundation in fundamental skills, which then allows them to have more confidence and engage in more exploratory activities in Maths with the skills they have mastered. One of the key goals of Maths at any year level is seeing the patterns in Maths and how we can use Maths to explore and understand the world in a structured way. A very simple pattern is that all multiples of 5 end in the digit 0 or 5, or the amazing reality of the normal distribution (bell curve) occurring in nature. 

It is important to offer students an opportunity to be in awe of Mathematics, just like they could be in another subject. I have recently bought a gift for the student who achieved the highest grade in my Year 12 Maths class. The book is called ‘A most elegant equation - Euler’s formula and the beauty of mathematics’. Euler’s formula is also called God’s equation, as it speaks to the elegance of mathematics and the world being an ordered creation where seemingly unrelated, naturally occurring mathematical concepts, all link together. Similarly, Galileo Galilei said, “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” As human understanding of mathematics and the sciences increases, it doesn’t diminish our understanding of God; rather, it helps explain more of how amazing God’s creation is, because of the underlying order he has embedded into it.

I am writing this to encourage all of us to engage with children in mathematics. In a practical sense, learning times tables or understanding fractions allows students to automate fundamental skills, enabling them to build upon these skills. Also, in a sense of fun and amazement, as simple as playing Yahtzee or looking up patterns in nature like Galton boards, or why dry lake beds have the same crack pattern as the spots on a giraffe. Not everyone will be in the ‘Maths is fun’ category. Still, I hope our graduating students are not of the view that Maths is painful and irrelevant, but rather a means of understanding the amazing world He has created.

Josh Brenkley 

Director of Curriculum and Innovation (ELC-12)

Director of ICT (F-12)