News

Lilydale High School is the biggest single campus government secondary school in Victoria. The school has about 40 teachers teaching mathematics. In 2013 the school took the decision to change the way it taught maths with a view to improving student learning. Through the latter half of 2013 they engaged Mathematics Centre to help develop a program of Discussion Lessons and PD sessions built around learning to work like a mathematician and the teaching craft that supports. They also spent extensively on companion resources, built systems to ensure they were readily accessible and recreated their curriculum documents around the core planners of the Maths With Attitude kits.

All this was focussed on beginning and growing a curriculum shift from the beginning of 2014.

Early this year, Marcus Whitby, the driving force behind this preparation and school wide action wrote:

We have received nothing but praise from anyone who hears about what were are doing. Staff members are growing at different rates but the administration team now whole-heartedly believe in what we are trying to achieve and consider the mathematics faculty / curriculum to be at the forefront of innovation and pedagogy in the school.

We are also strongly supported by all the research out there and all those who are at the top of their game when it comes to effective teaching of Mathematics - all of which we couldn't have done without your help, so again I thank you for this. Itıs really pleasurable when you attend conferences, PD sessions, school review committees and more and they talk about what needs to be done in order to be effectively teaching mathematics and Iım able to sit there and honestly say that we are either doing all that they suggest, and more now, or are moving in that direction - which is a far cry from where we were a few years ago.

We have come a long way from where we were 3 years ago and as one of staff member said we are teaching an entirely different curriculum!

Kind regards
Marcus Whitby, Daily Organiser / Timetable Coordinator, former HoD

Two huge contributions to Task Cameos this month from most unexpected places:

• Task 35, Crosses, now includes a photographic record from Year 6, Buloba Primary School, Kampala, Uganda which prepares the students for the problem by exploring ways of knowing about the sum of five numbers. A lesson plan that includes, physical involvement, concrete materials and mathematical conversation and is driven by the mathematician's question Can I check it another way?.
• Task 147, Garden Beds, now includes a photographic record of a Year 2 class at Svartedalsskolan, Hisingen, Sweden which illustrates that the children not only understood the problem, but were excited by and interested in the 'big' numbers they were using and the patterns they were building. A story context, physical involvement, concrete materials and peer support contributed to the success of the lesson.