John Rawlings, LA adviser for Neath Port Talbot chairs a discussion between maths consultant Richard Dunne and class teacher Pamela Morgan on teaching decimals at KS2. They look back at the lesson featured in The Decimal Place 1 and comment on visits to other local schools where different approaches are adopted. They discuss how Pamela concentrates on how decimals can be represented and how they can be written with the same value but a different appearance. We see a number stick and line method to introduce decimals and a teacher who uses an everyday situation, money, as a starting point. An on-screen calculator is used to show the relationship between decimals and vulgar fractions. The panel contrasts these starting points. The panel reflect on the group work in Decimal Place 1, especially how talking calculations through qualifies how, say ,10 hundredths is a tenth. Taking a hundredth and making ten thousandths to perform a subtraction is fully explored.

Video Series: KS1/2 Maths
Release Date 2006