The calculator as a tool to carry out calculations

If children are to be confident users of calculators, they need to be taught the basic skills of entering numbers and operations. They need to be able to interpret the values displayed both during this process of entering numbers and when they review their answers. They need to decide if the answer displayed is sensible and if it needs any adjustment to take account of rounding errors and to incorporate suppressed zeros. To use a calculator effectively requires a secure knowledge of number, which has to be the prime aim.

The revised Framework places an emphasis in Key Stage 1 and the first two years of Key Stage 2 on securing children's knowledge of number facts and mental calculation strategies. They also begin to develop written methods that they can apply more generally. In Year 4, children are expected to solve problems using calculator methods where appropriate. As children learn how to enter simple one-step calculations that involve whole numbers, they can explore the behaviour of the four operations and the properties of these numbers. They begin to recognise how their number knowledge can be applied to calculations that involve more complex operations with larger whole numbers.

Over the course of Years 5 and 6, children learn how to use other functions on the calculator and apply their skills and knowledge to decimal numbers, fractions and negative numbers. They solve multi-step problems and use the calculator to generate sequences of numbers and families of calculations. Children recognise underlying properties and principles that they can then apply when calculating mentally or on paper.

The general aim is that, by the end of Key Stage 2, children know how to transfer their knowledge and understanding of numbers and the four operations to mental, written and calculator methods of calculation. They can explain and record their methods in succinct and manageable ways.

More specifically, the aim is that when children leave primary schools they:

• have a secure knowledge of number facts and a good understanding of the four operations
• are able to use this knowledge and understanding to carry out calculations mentally and to apply both general strategies when using single-digit and two-digit numbers and particular strategies to special cases that involve larger numbers
• make use of jottings to help record steps and part answers when using mental methods that generate more information than they can keep in their heads
• use efficient written methods of calculation, which they can apply with confidence when undertaking calculations that they cannot carry out mentally
• use a calculator effectively, using their mental skills to monitor the process, to check the steps involved and to decide if the numbers displayed make sense.