Learning and Teaching 

Financial Decision Making - Year 5 and 6 Mathematics

Part of our Maths teaching involves open-ended investigations. Through using these investigations, the children can see the relevance of Mathematics within their lives. Since the start of Term 4, the Year 5 and 6 community have had a Maths focus on Money.

The children have had to solve number problems involving money, such as calculating discounts using percentages, spending to a set amount, as well as constructing simple budgets for familiar events and activities.  This past week, the children were given an open-ended problem involving money. There were two tasks to work on. One was to plan a birthday party keeping to a budget and the second was to create a detailed diagram and financial plan for a backyard mini golf hole. 

The Mathematics curriculum focuses on developing increasingly sophisticated and refined mathematical understanding, fluency, reasoning, modelling and problem-solving. These capabilities enable students to respond to familiar and unfamiliar situations by employing Mathematics to make informed decisions and solve problems efficiently.

As you can see from the images, the children in the Year 5 and 6 community showed their working out independently. However, they worked with each other to discuss their ideas and working out. This enables them to build their reasoning, understanding and problem-solving abilities through listening and talking to others. 

The Mathematics Association of Victoria created home learning tasks while we were undertaking remote learning. Edition 3 focused on money. Please follow this link if you would like to practise money problems with your child at home.

Deborah Courtney

Director of Teaching and Learning