Maths No Problem!

You may have heard your children talking about Singapore Maths and wondered what it is.

Singapore Maths, or Maths No Problem!, is a series of textbooks and workbooks written to meet the requirements of the 2014 English National Curriculum.  In Singapore, pupils’ Maths understanding, and ability to solve problems, has been rated among the best in the world.  For this reason, we have looked at what they are doing to develop children’s understanding and have purchased the Maths No Problem! books which will take our children from Early Years to Year 6, creating much better mathematical thinkers.  The Maths No Problem! scheme is the first to be given Mastery status by the government and, until recently, it was the only scheme given such status.

What does Maths No Problem! give to our children?

Maths No Problem! develops children’s mathematical reasoning, which is the action of thinking about something in a logical way.  During Maths lessons, we know that children are doing this through their use of manipulatives; they are verbalising their thinking methods to one another.  Through writing it down, they are thinking about their thinking (metacognition), they are checking and refining/editing their work and they are listening and responding to the ideas of others.  So far, we have found that Maths No Problem! gives children a deeper understanding of some of the more complex mathematical concepts.

Yeap Ban Har, one of the world’s leading expert Singapore Maths trainers,  explains some of the approaches and concepts in the following videos:

The concrete, pictorial and abstract approach

The bar model

Number bonds