Committees

Mathematic  2021 

 Numeracy 

Shelley Wockner Numeracy leader
Shelley Wockner Numeracy leader

At the end of Term One, we were very excited to host a three day visit from Numeracy Consultant, Kathryn Palmer. During this visit, grade teams worked alongside Kathy to reflect on current curriculum documents, student needs and student outcome projections in order to plan rich, evidence-based learning sequences for Term Two. 

 

During these sessions, Kathy guided the teachers through a process of unpacking their year levels’ essential learnings and developing their content knowledge of the developmental learning sequence for their year level. Teams reflected on these big ideas to develop meaningful learning episodes using a problem-based mathematics approach. These learning episodes are supported by the use of concrete materials. Kathy also worked with teams to identify ways in which the application of mathematical concepts could be further embedded into school days to reinforce student understanding in a real-life context. For example, students will be encouraged to set analogue clocks that match their daily timetable each morning to reinforce their understanding of time as it applies to their day. 

 

A key goal of the mathematics committee for Term One was to establish a clear vision for the ideal mathematics classroom environment that would scaffold and support student learning. Kathy delivered a professional learning session to Mackellar staff that assisted teams to reflect on their current classroom environment and plan for ways in which visual supports could best be placed in classrooms to foster student understanding. 

 

Kathy will continue her work with Mackellar staff for the duration of the year, and the focus of our work for Term Two will be around continuing to develop our: content knowledge of the big ideas in mathematics; pedagogical knowledge in applying a problem-based mathematics approach; and yearly overviews reflective of the developmental sequence. We are very excited to see students develop their confidence and love of mathematics as a result. Watch this space!

 

Shelley Wockner 

Numeracy Learning Specialist