Teaching for Mastery KS3 Curriculum Design

Curriculum Design Principles

  • A detailed curriculum is mapped out across all stages to support transition and ensure pupils acquire and demonstrate a sufficient grasp of the mathematics relevant to their year group.

  • A detailed curriculum is mapped out across each term, ensuring longer time is prioritised for key topics.

  • ‘Themes’ are designed and taught using a sequence of ‘Key Points’.

  • All pupils are expected to master each key point.

  • More time is spent on teaching key mathematical ideas and concepts to allow for the development of depth and sufficient practice to embed learning.


In English schools traditionally tend to reteach the same content year after year.

A mastery curriculum recaps prior content and moves on.

Fractions example

Curriculum progression: the planned and purposeful journey to expertise

Summary

The evidence presented here supports careful consideration of sequencing and content that makes a mathematics curriculum a guarantee of long-term learning. Useful facts and efficient and accurate methods are ideally paired within a topic sequence. Strategies for solving problem types are then best taught and learned once pupils can recall and deploy facts and methods with speed and accuracy. When planning curriculum content, teachers also need to prioritise ‘forward-facing’ knowledge. This goes beyond important facts of number. It includes the mathematical methods that pupils will take with them on their journey. The ideal aim is for pupils to attain proficiency, not just collective moments of understanding, familiarity or experience. This will help pupils to develop motivation in the subject.

high-quality maths education may have the following features

  • Successful curriculum progression is planned from the beginning of a pupil’s education through focusing on core content, to develop pupils’ motivation and to allow more breadth and depth later.

  • The planned curriculum details the core facts, concepts, methods and strategies that give pupils the best chance of developing proficiency in the subject.

  • The teaching of linked facts and methods is sequenced to take advantage of the way that knowing facts helps pupils to learn methods and vice versa.

  • Sequences of learning allow pupils to access their familiarity with the facts and methods they need in order to learn strategies for solving problem types.

Click here for full research review.

OFSTED Research review series: mathematics

Published 25 May 2021


Examples of KS3 Curriculum Overview

NCETM Sample Key Stage 3 Curriculum Framework

curriculum-framework-for-ks3-april-2021.pdf

Example Key Stage 3 Curriculum Framework from a Teaching for Mastery Specialist

Retrieval Practice allows students to revisit concepts in other contexts supporting making connections and long-term memory.

Algebra is introduced in context to generalise and solve problems.

Reasons behind this curriculum design.

The core concepts in Autumn Term 1 are all connected by the common themes of the structure of the number system and additive reasoning.

The core concepts are building on prior knowledge from KS2. Topics covered in A1 will be interleaved into new topics.

Greater depth is achieved by introducing base x for place value, solving problems using bar models and equations and extending adding and subtracting integers to involve like terms.

Year 7 Autumn 2 core concepts are connected by multiplicative reasoning.

This Scheme of Learning is created by grouping elements of an existing Scheme of Learning into common themes and then checking coverage against the KS3 PoS.

The common themes used are based on the common themes from the NCETM PD material shown on the right.



Notice that area and perimeter are taught separately. Perimeter is grouped into additive reasoning and area is grouped into multiplicative reasoning.



White Rose Maths Year 7 Curriculum Overview

Again the common themes are written above the units. Does your current Scheme of Learning group common themes?

Try taking your current Scheme of Learning and grouping together common themes like additive reasoning and multiplicative reasoning.

You could use the six themes from the NCETM PD material