Developing Understanding in Primary Mathematics

This text presents a philosophical yet classroom approach to mathematics teaching, and examines how mathematics is taught across the curriculum and age range in primary school. It explores the role of play, story, drama, pattern, sound, and children's drawings and games in maths teaching.

Andrew Davis is Director of the PGCE Primary Course at Durham University and Lecturer in Early Years and Mathematics. He contributes to INSET and the MA programme in Mathematics Education. Previously a primary teacher for many years, he then moved to Homerton College, Cambridge to teach Philosophy of Education. Research interests include philosophical psychology of mathematics learning, and assessment. Publications include several related academic papers, together with computer software, and various curriculum articles in magazines such as Junior Education and Infant Projects. Deirdre Pettitt lectures in the School of Education at the University of Durham. She moved from infant teaching into higher education at the University of East Anglia, where she directed the Early Years teacher education course (1985 to 1987). Her major research interest is Early Years. Since 1990 she has worked with Carol Aubrey on the investigation of informal mathematical knowledge children bring to school. Her publications include (with Joy Palmer) Topic Work in the Early Years ―4–8 (1993, London, Routledge), and chapters on history and writing in The Role of Subject Knowledge in the Early Years of Schooling, edited by Carol Aubrey (1994, Falmer Press).