Manaiakalani COL Achievement Challenge 2018.

The Manaiakalani  COL Achievement Challenge that I am basing my 2018 Inquiry around is to lift achievement in maths of my Year 1 students.

My inquiry will focus on the role of language in mathematics and how this language can be "normalised" and transferred into other areas of the curriculum and relates to their everyday conversations and usage.

Year 1 students often lack the verbal tools to begin to look at a maths problem or to justify concepts of how they solved a problem so they are less likely to participate in a maths lesson, remaining silent or shrugging their shoulders and therefore do not make as much progress in maths as they are capable of. 

They switch off saying they "can't do maths"  but what they really mean is "I can't find the right words to explain what I am suppose to do and how I did it."

I propose to look at the role of language in mathematics and how I can support my students to acquire this language and thinking that they need to raise their achievement.