Singapore Mathematics at Grange Valley
From September 2015, Grange Valley Primary School, began using the Singapore approach to teach mathematics in Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 6. The Singapore method of teaching mathematics places great emphasis on: problem solving and comprehension, allowing students to relate what they learn to prior knowledge; careful scaffolding of core competencies of: visualisation (as a platform for comprehension), mental strategies (to develop decision making abilities) and pattern recognition (to support the ability to make connections and generalise) and more emphasis on the foundations for learning and not on the content itself so students learn to think mathematically as opposed to merely reciting formulas or procedures.
In Reception, Year 4 and Year 5, children will be implementing the Singapore approach during the Spring Term 2016, when staff have received adequate training.
Our Singapore Maths Lesson Structure:
Explore – At the start of the session children are presented with a problem (Focus). Using manipulative on the table, children try and solve the problem.
Structure – Children offer their methods to the teacher. The teacher models all methods on the board.
Journal – Children choose their preferred method to journal in their books.
Reflect and practice – Children are given the opportunity to review other methods given by their peers. Through guided practice, children become familiar with using their new skills to answer familiar problems.
Apply – Children have the opportunity to use their new skills to answer an unfamiliar problem.
Mrs Holcroft and Miss Hitchen have attended training delivered by Dr Yeap Ban Har. This training has been cascaded to all staff. Year 1, 2 and 3 are currently being supported by Mark Cotton, Headteacher of Our Lady of Pity Roman Catholic Primary School http://www.olopschool.co.uk/. Mark is an expert in this field and has been deployed by the teaching school to support us in implementing Singapore Maths.
Below (and via the link) are some fantastic videos, all about 5 minutes long, explaining the fundamentals of Singapore Maths. These may be really helpful with homework so you could watch them with your child.
Dr Yeap talks about one of the fundamental ideas in mathematics: that items can only be counted, added, and subtracted if they have the same nouns. He uses a simple example with concrete objects, chocolates and glue sticks to illustrate the point and then shows how it relates to column addition and the addition of fractions.
Dr. Yeap Ban Har explains the principles of the Concrete Pictorial Abstract approach used in Singapore Maths textbooks. This is an excerpt of a Maths No Problem seminar to an audience of teachers in London.
Dr. Yeap explains how young children can use concrete materials and later use pictorial representations as number bonds. Number bonds represent how numbers can be split up into their component parts. Children can explore number bonds using a variety of concrete materials, such as counters with containers and ten frames or with symbols.
Dr. Yeap discusses how diagrams can be used to represent a situation in a problem: such as rectangles representing (unknown) quantities. This method of visualising problems is known as the bar model.
