Haylock and Cockburn

My apologies to any readers of this blog for a long period of silence. Anne Cockburn and I have been busy working on a fifth edition of our Book, Understanding Mathematics for Young Children. We finished this last week and have sent off the 'manuscript' to the Sage Publications.

The word 'Manuscript', which is still used in publishing circles, means, of course, 'written by hand', which is strangely archaic, given that no pens and no paper were involved in either the writing process or the submission of the new edition to the publisher.

We hope to see the new edition on the shelves (another anachronism, since most of the sales will be online!) in the first half of next year.

We have had to rework the book to ensure that it is consistent with the language and content of the new primary mathematics curriculum in England. This has introduced some new material for Year 2 children, such as fractions. The new curriculum has meant a general shift of content down from Year 3 to Year 2 (and likewise from Year 4 to Year 3). So, to avoid our book getting even longer, we have had to make a decision to reduce the age range covered. So, it is now described as 'a guide for teachers of children aged 3–7 years' (rather than 3–8). This is a better fit for teacher training courses anyway, since it is now clearly aimed at Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1.

So, with that done, I hope to get back to writing the occasional blog again! Watch this space.

Outrageous Performance Descriptor Maths KS1

The Department for Education in England is engaged at present in a consultation about their proposed performance descriptors for children in Key Stages 1 and 2 in relation to the new primary curriculum.

I have just been looking at the mathematics descriptors for Key Stage 1.

The proposal includes the requirement that children who are to be judged as working 'at the national standard' at the end of Year 2 will be able to ...

     add and subtract numbers using ... the written columnar methods ...

They can't be allowed to get away with that! Columnar methods for addition and subtraction are NOT in the curriculum for Key Stage 1 mathematics. They are mentioned in the non-statutory guidance for Year 2, but they are quite clearly not required in the actual curriculum.

Non-statutory guidance is non-statutory!

But these proposed performance indicators will be statutory. Key Stage 1 teachers will be requried to assess pupils against these criteria. So, de facto, they will become the key focus of the curriculum.

This is an outrage. We must protest strongly at what looks like a deliberate attempt to give non-statutory advice about formal traditional written calculation methods the same status as what is in the actual curriculum.