Week 8

MATHS BUDDIES

This week in Kowhai we have started 

MATHS BUDDIES.

This involves the buddies teaching each other what they have learnt from their 

Maths Group Work with the teacher.

Here we are working together showing our thinking on our whiteboards.

17/3/15

For the identified Totara students I sent home a weeks worth of practise basic facts sheets. Students will do one a night and bring back to school at the end of the week. Parents have been asked to support their child and school with raising their child's Number Knowledge level.

Future Steps

How are we going to help the Year 4 students 

to achieve at or above 

the National Standards by the end of the year?

• One student will be in Kowhai for the first 15 minutes of the lesson so he can participate in Buddy Teaching

• For Buddy Teaching the students will be paired with a student who is at a different stage, such as in Kowhai the Square group will be paired with Circles and Triangles with be grouped with Diamonds

• Buddy teaching will happen at the beginning of each lesson where each buddy will be given time to show the other student what they have been learning

• Research shows that 90% of our learning takes place with our peers

• Maths Buddy has tutorial that practice strategic thinking.  Would be great if this was available for the students to practice their strategic thinking

• First goal would be to improve basic facts

• In Kowhai there is a weekly speed test, and this is followed up at homework regarding timetables

• It would be beneficial for Deb and myself to observe Hannah teaching the Spring in to Maths Programme

• Three students will be monitored

• We will try the above steps until after Multiplication and Division Teaching finishes in Term 2.  We will then review results and see what further steps need to be implemented.  

Findings from Initial Meeting

Percentages from the Data were inconsistent.  It is not 80% the percentage was 40% which equates to 14, plus one children who started Solway at the beginning of 2015.

Please note the 80% referred to all children in Year 1-3.

We are concentrating on the Year 4 cohort of 2015.

Two of the children have been identified as high learning needs and receive RTLB assistance.

Three children are going to be monitored closely as we think the expectations between Early Stage 5 and Stage 5 are huge for some of the year 4 children.  

We have found, when the children work independently after participating in a modelling or guided group session they can not transfer the knowledge to an independent activity.

All but three of the children participate in the Spring into Maths Programme once a week.



  

Term 1 Week 8

An initial meeting has been planned for Monday 16th March at 3.15 pm.

At this meeting the following will be discussed:

• Gather 2014 National Standard Data 

• Identify the children who are currently achieving under the National Standards

• Highlight what children are currently in the SPRING Programme

• Discuss what we need to implement in the classroom to ensure these Year 4 children meet the National Standards in 2015