Glasgow has moved swiftly to endorse the HMI report on 5-14 maths, cracking down on calculators and giving schools freedom to organise classes. The city had already set up a working group to address concerns raised in the 1996 maths report in the Assessment of Achievement Programme, which sparked the HMI inquiry.
Christine Higgison, senior education officer, said guidelines for schools would encourage more direct teaching and more interaction between teacher and pupils.
The Glasgow group is currently drawing up plans to break down each level of 5-14 into “achievable targets”. These would “enable schools to measure their attainment year by year thus helping them to raise their expectations of pupils”.
Part of the city’s Pounds 1.9 million share of the Government’s Pounds 24 million early intervention grant will be used to second two numeracy tutors to work with primary schools. Primaries will work with local nurseries developing progression in numeracy up to the primary 3 stage.
The working group will now look at maths from primary 6 to secondary 2. Heads will have flexibility in organising early secondary classes and have been advised that “there is no longer any central prescription that all classes in S1-S2 should be mixed ability”.
