Y3 Teachers Have Made Maths Fun & Engaging for Students

The teachers in Year 3 have made “challenging all our mathematicians” by engaging them in different styles of thinking and learning a priority this year.

The teachers have recently attended 3 courses with this particular focus at heart. It is very much in tune with current trends in the UK, and the aim is to provide all our children with fun, engaging, yet challenging Maths lessons. Running through the core is the CPA approach which we have already adopted through school. The CPA approach allows children to learn by experiencing Maths in everyday life, using concrete materials. This is followed by Maths represented pictorially, aiming finally for Maths in a more abstract scenario. We are ultimately aiming for mastery within Maths which allows our children to demonstrate fluency in unfamiliar situations.

Providing a challenge during the input phase of the lesson

We have focused on differentiated questioning by searching and engaging questioning techniques. We have looked at Bloom’s Taxonomy to investigate how to facilitate higher-order thinking.

Challenges during the activity phase

When challenging our mathematicians, we have been encouraging flexible thinking by adapting and using previous knowledge. We have challenged students to spot patterns and make connections and have encouraged them to investigate multiple methods.

We recognise that it is important that students do not have a passive relationship with their learning. We as teachers should be encouraging students to be thinking flexibly and to take a deep dive into their learning. Students should not rush in and be satisfied with the first answer, and we have been encouraging them to think that the process can be more important than the answer. As a result, we hope our learners develop resilience and should aim to look for multiple concepts like the most efficient method, repeated patterns, unusual and unexpected outcomes and being able to confidently explain how they arrived at their answer.

Sally Homer
Y3 Teacher