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Case study: Year 1-2 long-term plan

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Implementation Plan for Mathematics and Statistics

School: Leithbrook School

Year: 20XX

Team/Syndicate: Kowhai (Rooms 10, 11, 12, 14)

Classes: Years 1-2

Guiding principles of our programme

Our team aims to provide all students with best possible transition from Early Childhood Education to Primary School. We enact the principles of empowerment, holistic development, family and community, and relationships, described in Te Whariki (Ministry of Education, 2017). Mathematics and Statistics is a key learning area that impacts on how our students view the world, and their future well-being, and participation in society.

Our principles are:

  • Connect mathematics and statistics lessons to the everyday, and imaginary, worlds of our students so they see opportunities to apply the concepts and skills to their lives.
  • Build a disposition in our students to look for pattern (regularity) and structure (organisation), and to apply patterns, and structures, to new-to-them situations.
  • Provide a balanced, connected approach to the teaching of topics that integrates the learning of number, measurement, spatial relationships, and statistics.
  • Monitor student progress to ensure that learning needs are identified and appropriate opportunities to learn are provided in a targeted way.
  • Use a variety of lesson types, and group settings, including whole class investigations and lessons, collaborative group work, and opportunities for students to work independently.
  • Teach concepts and skills using multiple representations, especially materials, language and symbols, with the aim that students develop rich, related concepts.
  • Balance the development of skills such as counting, measuring, and extending patterns, with application of concepts to new-to-them situations.

Long-term Planning

We base our long-term plan on three main considerations:

  1. Achievement data about our students that is regularly updated. Our main standardised source of data is individual student assessments using the Junior Assessment of Mathematics (JAM). We collate JAM data using our student management system and create reports to inform our knowledge of collective needs. We also gather formative assessment data, usually in the form of work samples and observational comments, to further inform our planning decisions.
  2. The Mathematics and Statistics learning area of The New Zealand Curriculum provides the learning outcomes for our students. Given that our students are in Years 1 and 2 we focus mainly on Level One achievement objectives, with the aim that at least 50% of our students will begin work at Level 2 by the end of their second full year at school.
  3. Our own professional knowledge of progressions in learning and connections among concepts informs our planning decisions. For example, counting of objects in ones requires knowledge of word sequences forwards and backwards, and is applied through measuring with informal units and working with displays of category data.

Long-Term Plan

All continuing students in our classes were assessed using JAM late last year. For manageability reasons we chose to use the number Modules, Additive Strategies (1), Multiplicative and Fraction Strategies (2), Numeral ID (3), Forward Sequences (4), and Backward Sequences (5). The same modules were used on New Entrant students at the start of the school year. Our SMS generated reports against the five modules:

Observations from the data are:

  • Our students tend to be stronger with their additive strategies than their multiplicative and fractions strategies. This may reflect our focus on additive thinking last year.
  • Numeral recognition is relatively strong for most students.
  • Knowledge of number sequences, particularly backward sequences, needs focus as that knowledge is critical to counting on and back strategies, and the development of part-whole (stage 5) strategies.
  • Naming the number before and after a given number is a challenge for many of our students.

Our data about student achievement on other strands, Patterns (Algebra), Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics is restricted to judgments against levels of the New Zealand Curriculum for continuing students only. Through the last two terms of last year teachers made judgments about the best fit level for each student on each strand. Judgments were made when classes worked on the strands concerned so the data was reliable at that time point. Our SMS generates reports for each strand or sub-strand (PDF, 182KB),  based on the data that was entered. The report also identifies students at the earliest steps.

Priority areas established from the other strand data are:

  • With Sequential Patterns, most students need support in identifying the unit of repeat, and in learning skip counting patterns from zero and non-zero starting points. The later point connects to weaknesses in multiplicative strategies.
  • With Shape, most students are capable at identifying common shapes irrespective of size and orientation. However, they need support with sorting shapes by different features, and connecting features to identify and sort by properties.
  • With Position and Orientation, our students are mostly working at early Level Two. That is an area of strength.
  • With Transformations, most students can match a given symmetric figure. However, they need support to complete a symmetric figure from a starting element, using translation, reflection, and rotation.
  • With Measurement, most students are we either able to use indirect measures or use informal units of measure with no gaps or overlaps. While this is a relative strength, more work is needed with formal units, and the development of scales across a range of attributes, e.g. mass, capacity.
  • Although Statistical Literacy is sound, students need support to conduct their own investigations independently.
  • Most students need support in Probability, to identify all possible outcomes, anticipate the relative likelihood of the outcomes, and trial the situation in systematic ways.

The data also identifies a small target group. Although these students are only in their second year of school, their achievement warrants monitoring, and additional support may be required. At the end of each unit assessment data about these students will be brought to team meetings and strategies to address learning difficulties will be discussed and implemented.

Target Group

Lionel Kendrick, Hemi Pongia, Zoe Cresswell, Luna Towers, Owen Chang, Aria Faitaua.

Plan

Our Term 1 and 2 plan (PDF, 126KB) reflects the priorities described above. A review of the plan will be conducted late in Term One. The data on strands other than number was dated at the beginning of this year, and other patterns of achievement may emerge from observations. At that point the plan will be extended to include Term 3.