Checking up Guides

Check up 1 the first of the guides from Nuffield is complementary to Mathematics Begins to which there are numerous references, it is strongly recommended that this guide is not used independently.

This guide focuses on the various concepts leading to the idea of number and to the operations on numbers. The word concept is used to describe ideas which are abstracted from experiences e.g. addition, sorting, ordering, in this sense of the word a concept cannot be taught, it is acquired through the student’s activity

The concepts and pathways of development are mapped out diagrammatically and are supplemented by comprehensive notes listing required apparatus, teacher questions and typical replies. Included are one to one correspondence and conservation, one to one correspondence and transitivity, comparisons, sorting and union and intersection of sets.

Checking Up 2 deals with 'shape and size' concepts for students of roughly ages 5 to 8 or 9, although some of the 'summary' check ups at the end would extend to older students. An important emphasis in this part of the work is on measurement, with its necessarily approximate nature.

The guide re-emphasised that the check-ups were flexible and only for the guidance of the teacher. Materials could be adapted and that students should only be given a check-up when the teacher felt it was valuable.

Checking up 3. This guide is a continuation of both Checking Up 1 (towards number) and Checking Up 2 (towards space and invariance).
The first two chapters, on Speed and time and Logic, cover topics which are not on the concept map as it is impossible to pin-point them. The check-ups concerned cover a wide age-range, as does the chapter on Probability. The remaining chapters cut across the concept map : three investigate geometrical ideas. Chapter 7 deals with invariances of weight and volume, and the last chapters are concerned principally with underlying ideas of arithmetic.

The check-ups were not intended to be intelligence tests but milestones that would allow teachers to judge where a student was in their normal development. The aim of the check-ups was to show that students acquire concepts gradually and point to the difficulties they could encounter.