Where are the algorithms?

Primary maths - different to when you were at school?!   

Often students will be working on maths at home which may appear different to the way it was taught in the past. As research into mathematical learning grows, we aim to use the best strategies we can to build our students understanding.

So where are the algorithms? Isn’t that ‘real’ maths?

As outlined in the syllabus, first we focus on estimating strategies. If you are learning at home a great prompt is “what would you expect / estimate / think the answer could be?” “How could you prove that?” or “How could you work that out?”

Students may find writing out informal mental strategies to be more efficient than using formal written algorithms. For example, 8000 − 673 is easier to calculate mentally than by using a formal algorithm.  

So if your child is inventing strategies or using a more unconventional method encourage it!  We will teach the formal algorithm methods when the time is right, and the answer impossible to work out any other way!