The study of mathematics provides students with essential mathematical knowledge, skills, procedures and processes in number, algebra, measurement, space, statistics and probability. It develops the numeracy capabilities that all students need in their personal, work and civic lives, and provides the fundamentals on which mathematical specialties and professional applications of mathematics are built. It also provides students with learning opportunities to develop mathematical proficiency, including a sound understanding of and fluency with the concepts, skills, procedures and processes needed to interpret contexts, choose ways to approach situations using mathematics, and to reason and solve problems arising from these situations.
Aims
Mathematics aims to ensure that students:
- become confident, proficient and effective users and communicators of mathematics, who can investigate, represent and interpret situations in their personal and work lives, think critically, and make choices as active, engaged, numerate citizens
- develop proficiency with mathematical concepts, skills, procedures and processes, and use them to demonstrate mastery in mathematics as they pose and solve problems, and reason with number, algebra, measurement, space, statistics and probability
- make connections between areas of mathematics and apply mathematics to model situations in various fields and disciplines
- foster a positive disposition towards mathematics, recognising it as an accessible and useful discipline to study
- acquire specialist mathematical knowledge and skills that underpin numeracy development and lead to further study in mathematics and other disciplines.
Structure
Mathematics is presented in year levels for each year from Foundation to Year 10. Content is organised under 6 interrelated strands as illustrated in the figure below:
The proficiencies of understanding, fluency, reasoning and problem-solving are embedded through the content across the interrelated strands.
The processes of mathematical modelling, computational thinking, statistical investigation and probability experiments and simulations are embedded into the content across the strands connecting process skills with content knowledge, drawing on students' proficiency in mathematics in an integrated way.
Mathematics provides opportunities to integrate and connect content to other learning areas, in particular, Science, Technologies, The Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) and Health and Physical Education.
The Minimum Requirements for Providing the Australian Curriculum will provide clarity around the time that teachers are required to spend implementing the Mathematics Learning Area.