Dietmar Küchemann
This is my second GEOMETRY blog. The first (GeometricSparks) explored the geometry curriculum for students studying the National Curriculum for England and Wales at Key Stage 3 (age 11 - 14 years). This blog explores the geometry curriculum for students at Key Stage 4 (age 14 - 16 years), ie students heading for the GCSE Mathematics Exam.
In referring to the curriculum, I have deliberately used the word explore. What I aim to do is to devise tasks for each item in the content list for Geometry and Measures that appears in the UK Government's 2014 Mathematics Programmes of Study for Key Stage 4 (see below). However, rather than attempting to devise tasks like those in the GCSE exam, my basic aim is to give students (and their teachers) a fresh look at, and perhaps a deeper insight into, the geometry content. As such, the focus is on developing understanding rather than on honing procedures.
In truth, because the KS4 geometry content is so heartbreakingly thin, I have sometimes gone well beyond the National Curriculum requirements and used the content list as a jumping off point for challenging tasks that I hope will engage students. In the process, I hope too that the tasks will help students (and their teachers) see how the meagre KS4 offering can form part of a rich and engaging area of mathematics.
The 'statements of knowledge, skills and understanding' for geometry in the National Curriculum at Key Stage 4 are listed below (from page 4 of the document ncetm_ks3_theme_6.pdf)
My first blog in this series was Algebradabra, a blog for secondary school students and their teachers. This was followed by Algeburble, which focussed on early algebra, and then by MultipliXing, which focussed on multiplicative reasoning. All these have been published in book form by ATM, the Association for Teachers of Mathematics. The GeometricSparks blog came out as an ATM book, in revised form, in October 2022.
Dietmar Küchemann
