In 2013, the English Primary Mathematics Curriculum underwent significant pedagogical reform, influenced by research into best practices in South-Eastern Asia. The primary mathematics curriculum was republished and became founded on a term coined as "teaching for mastery", the belief that all pupils can succeed in mathematics (Boylan et al., 2019). Within this principle there evolved an expectation that mathematics lessons would be underpinned by 'five big ideas', which the National Centre of Excellence in Teaching Mathematics (NCETM) named as variation, fluency, coherence, representation, and mathematical thinking. It is heralded as an approach that promotes skills within the cognitive domain including both metacognition and co-dependent cognitive thinking (NCETM, 2016). The ultimate aim of this pedagogy is to equip all pupils with the mathematical skills that ensure they develop the competencies required to succeed and solve increasingly complex problems (DfE, 2014). This session considers the how curriculum design of all subjects can be transformed by this approach.
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