[caption id="attachment_8953" align="alignleft" width="150"] Intelligent practice year 1[/caption] Intelligent practice year 1 The new mathematics curriculum reflects the content of high achieving south-east Asian countries such as Singapore, Japan and South Korea. Part of this approach is what has become known as ‘intelligent practice’. This involves providing activities and practice questions which do more than just repeating a mechanical process. Instead children work through connected calculations drawing attention to the structure and mathematical relationships involved. It might sound complicated but an example below will help. Rather than just being given 3 + 6 = there will be several other calculations closely connected to the first: e.g. 3 + 6 = 3 + 7 = 13 + 7 = 13 + 17 = Arranged in small sets of four or five questions, earlier answers can be used to quickly work out later questions. If you know 3 + 7 = 10, then it is easy to work out that 13 + 7 = 20 etc. Many of our worksheets use this technique but we have just published a completely new set of pages for Addition in Year 1, under the titles ‘Brainy addition (intelligent practice). Look out for some more of these in the future. Go to Year 1 Addition