Mereway Middle School

Information from Maths Book Monitoring

When Maths books were looked at last week they were examined for both quantitative and qualitative data. Inside you will find the quantitative data in table forms.

Also looked at was :

• marking - its style and the impact of it on the children's learning

• evidence of progressive concept development

• opportunities to practise new skills

• the link with stated maths targets

You will be able to draw your own conclusions for your year group and indeed for you as a teacher. I intend this information to be the subject of discussion at a team meeting. I have discussed the findings with team co-ordinators. I will be feeding back to Dawn on the conclusions from the analysis of the qualitative data. You will want to examine your practice and arrangements in relation to the information provided by this paper.

Outline conclusions from 'Qualitative' Data

• Some books showed regular and systematic consideration of forecast maths work with the evidence of work being approached daily or every other day with clear evidence of concentrated attention - in some cases this was excellent.
  

• In a few but by no means all cases there seemed only tentative concept build up with work jumping from one area of maths to another

• Some maths books contained almost exclusively number work

• The titles of work often did not reflect the mathematical concepts. This makes the maths the maths book difficult for later reference by the child or teacher.

• In one or two books children were 'writing' about their learning - explaining their understanding. This is a good development.
  

• Some books contained very little marking comment

• The opportunity to practice newly acquired skills or understanding varied enormously from very regular to rarely.

• In some cases the link between stated targets and work covered was clear in others there seemed no links and hence little evidence of targets achieved