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Guidance documents

The six Guidance Papers described below are available by clicking on the Resources link on the left. They are intended to offer further support on planning and teaching and might be used to inform and guide policy and practice in the school.

  • Using and applying mathematics. This paper identifies the importance of children being taught how they can use and apply their mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding and being given regular and frequent opportunity to do so. The paper sets out the themes within the using and applying mathematics strand and the progression embedded within each theme.
  • Calculation. This paper emphasises the importance of children acquiring secure mental methods of calculation and an efficient written method of calculation for each of the four operations. It outlines progression in each of the four operations and draws on the material that was previously set out in the Supplement of Examples in the 1999 Framework for teaching mathematics.
  • Calculators. This paper addresses the role of the calculator as a tool in the teaching and learning of mathematics. It distinguishes between the calculator as a useful resource to help develop children's understanding of number and a tool to use when calculating. The paper offers guidance on the technical skills the children need and the calculating skills they should learn from Year 4.
  • Oral and mental activity. This paper emphasises the importance of oral and mental work in mathematics teaching. It offers six features of children's mathematics learning that oral and mental work can support, the 6Rs, to provide a vocabulary with which to describe the focus of oral and mental activity. The paper offers brief descriptions of the learning focus with examples of associated activities. It emphasises the use of prompting, probing and promoting questions to stimulate, assess or challenge children's learning. The paper develops one particular activity and provides a set of prompts for schools to review how oral and mental work is planned and used across all seven strands in the Framework.
  • Day-to-day assessment. This paper considers the teaching and learning cycle: assess - plan - teach - practise - apply - review and the importance of assessment in planning, teaching and children's learning. It looks at how the assessment for learning guidance embedded in the Blocks and Units within the Framework might be used to gather assessment information. The paper sets out six principles that guide assessment for learning. These are expanded and exemplified to show how they might support and extend children's learning of mathematics. There are a set of prompts to help the reader identify their own confidences and the next steps they might take to embed the principles into their own classroom practice.
  • Mathematics and the primary curriculum. This discussion paper poses some key questions about mathematics and its place in the primary curriculum. It offers a series of general statements about mathematics and exemplifies these to stimulate ideas and discussion on the nature and role of mathematics in the primary curriculum. The paper offers ten approaches to the teaching of mathematics. These relate to the general statements about the nature and role of mathematics. The ten approaches are summarised to provide an agenda for whole school discussion and are followed by a series of questions that might be used to review the way mathematics is perceived and taught in the school.