As the Maths Lead at St Matthew’s Research School, I have always had a clear vision for mathematics teaching. I wanted to immerse our children in the creativity of maths, alongside giving them the language to be able to effectively and confidently communicate their understanding of key concepts and reasoning.
Recommendation Two in the ‘Improving Mathematics in Early Years and Key Stage One’ guidance report suggests that practitioners should ‘Create opportunities for extended discussion of mathematical ideas with children’.
This is at the very heart of what I consider to be high quality teaching of maths, across all phases. I also believe it is vital for developing children’s metacognition – their thinking about how they learn successfully in maths.
