Draft new national curriculum

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Guest55
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Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:21 pm

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by Guest55 »

It's the 'understanding' that's important - so in some ways I agree.

However - I've seen children in 'automatic pilot' attempt 2005 -1989 by a vertical method instead of thinking 'Oh those numbers are close, it'll be easier to just count on'.

Long multiplication CANNOT be extended to algebra (which is just generalised number) so imho, it is a 'dead-end ' method. Your example is easy as many people can multiply by 25 in their head anyway!
mystery
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Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by mystery »

Ah sorry, shouldn't have picked 25 ..... bad example, but really it's still two short multiplications added together (or more if multiplying by more digits). I see what you mean about the extension to algebra though - do you do algebra these days by the "grid method" too? I've always just written everything out horizontally - is that a disadvantage in some way?

I know what you mean about 2005 - 1989. I see my children going through this now at primary school ...... they learn both methods. However they don't seem to learn how to make the best choice; neither did I but I do seem to make the choice now as an adult quite appropriately!

A while back my DD worked out for herself how to do all the exchanging necessary to work out something vertically like 50000 - 3987. They had been taught how to subtract vertically but not with sufficient digits to know how to do an example like this by the vertical method. She had a homework question where she tried to do something like this vertically and couldn't, then did it by using her number bonds up to nearest 10, nearest 100, up to nearest 1000 etc.

She then proceeded to work out how to do it vertically. The teacher's comment was that it was choosing the appropriate method that was the most important thing. However, to my knowledge they never look at how to decide what the best method might be.
sherry_d
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Location: Maidstone

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by sherry_d »

Can't teachers be given more autonomy on how they teach? The curriculum will tell them what they need to teach like division then its up to teacher on how he delivers it. Long, short or whatever he fancies for his cohort. Kids are all different and I can't see how prescribing the same thing eg for top set and then bottom set will work out.

I also think for kids to love maths the govt has to stop prescribing one way of doing it. Kids have to learn and discover mathematics in the way that best suits them.
Impossible is Nothing.
yoyo123
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Location: East Kent

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by yoyo123 »

Can't teachers be given more autonomy on how they teach?
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

:roll:
Amber
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Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by Amber »

There is a long answer and a short answer to that sherry. The long answer is very long...but let's just say that in the most successful country educationally, by any measure, Finland, there is no national curriculum and teachers are trusted to do their job.

But this is England. Politicians rule, and they are only in office a short time. None wants to be remembered for doing nothing, and by the time it comes to account for the changes, Michael Gove will be sipping port, presiding over a few consultancies and counting the royalties from his book.

The short answer was so well put by yoyo that I couldn't better it. :?
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by mystery »

But they do have more autonomy than you are making out. The current National Curriculum does not set out exactly how you have to teach things. I don't think the new one will either will it?
sherry_d
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Location: Maidstone

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by sherry_d »

Not when they are being told to use long or short division or whatever. That doesn't sound like being given autonomy to me. If the answer is going to be 5 which is what will get you the full marks for does it matter which method you use? Should we not even be encouraging the children to think of the various ways to get to the answer 5 rather than one method? Its also treating kids like robots, expecting them all to get along with long division. How about those who are just get better with short division?
Impossible is Nothing.
Amber
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Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by Amber »

mystery wrote:But they do have more autonomy than you are making out. The current National Curriculum does not set out exactly how you have to teach things. I don't think the new one will either will it?
Precisely! Teachers in this country don't get taught proportionately much about pedagogy, developmental psychology, barriers to learning, how to teach. They just get told what to teach! And that changes every couple of years. Countries with the opposing view train and train their teachers in all that stuff and then let them decide what it is appropriate to teach, based on the fact that they are now total experts on children and the business of learning. Trouble is, stick in words like 'traditional' and it's like mother's milk and apple pie - you can't argue with it, it must be A Good Thing, and suddenly we all want long division back again. And when was the last time you actually needed to do it?
First-timer
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Location: Essex

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by First-timer »

I use long division pretty regularly when working out DD's percentage score in practice papers. It's much quicker than hunting for a calculator/working out how to do it on my mobile phone. The number of times I've made practical use of the fact that the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees has, however, been precisely none. Lots of what is learned at school is not necessarily used by everyone in later life. I don't think that's the best way to judge whether something should be taught.

My own DC fare much better with long multiplication and division than they do with gridding and chunking. That doesn't mean that I don't want them to be taught all the different methods. It's absolutely true that they need to be equipped to choose the best method for the particular problem in hand.
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Draft new national curriculum

Post by mystery »

Well quite often - I'm very disorganised and can't find a calculator that works! :wink:

But seriously, I don't think it is much to ask that an 11 year old can do long division, and it doesn't stop a lot else being taught as well - alternative methods etc. All that flipping chunking takes forever in the wrong hands, and long division is only the neatest and most perfect chunking!!

Yes some children might never be capable of it ... but I don't think it should be down to an individual teacher to decide that he or she is never going to teach long division to any of their pupils.

You could chuck out the majority of what is taught in schools and universities on the basis of "when was the last time you used it?", or "buy the right gadgets and they'll do most of it for you".

It's really quite amusing but I'm teaching DD1 short division this week, and my plan was to do long multiplication next week and long division the week after! I'll let you know the results :shock:
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