Real Maths Stories....

Always on the look out for some inspiration, we were impressed with the approach to Maths held by colleagues at St Stephen's Junior in Bristol. The school has adopted a 'Maths Story' approach based on Singapore/Shanghai methods:
"Teaching of mathematics at St Stephen’s has links with Shanghai/Singapore maths. We have embedded the CPA (concrete, pictoral, abstract) approach to lessons. All concepts are introduced with concrete resources for children to feel and manipulate. As their conceptual understanding develops, they move towards the pictoral and abstract stages. These are recorded in their books as ‘the real story’ and ‘the maths story’. Children are not pushed to move through these stages until they have shown understanding gained by the teacher through skilful assessment." St Stephen's Junior
We've been actively considering our own approaches to teaching and learning Maths in line with some of the positive things we're hearing form the far East! For more details head to their website here.