Teaching recommendations

Foundation ★ Recommended

Match Quantity

Match numerals to counted collections.

Why this can matter

Students strengthen the link between spoken number words, written numerals, and quantities they can see, count, and check.

Teaching focus

Use quick routines that ask students to count collections, match numerals to quantities, and explain how they know the quantity is correct.

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Foundation + Year 1 ★ Recommended

Magnitude Comparison

Compare which number is more or less.

Why this can matter

Students build fluency comparing numbers and explaining which value is greater, smaller, or the same.

Teaching focus

Show two numerals, ask for the comparison sentence, then use a representation to prove the comparison. For Year 1, extend the routine to two-digit numbers and place-value reasoning.

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Foundation + Year 1 ★ Recommended

Missing Number

Find numbers before, after, and between.

Why this can matter

Students strengthen the ordered structure of the counting sequence and learn to locate numbers around a gap.

Teaching focus

Use number tracks, oral counting, hundreds charts, and short sequence tasks that require students to justify the number that belongs in the gap.

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Foundation ★ Recommended

Decomposition

Break numbers into parts and recombine them.

Why this can matter

Students learn that numbers can be made and remade in parts, supporting later addition, subtraction, and flexible calculation.

Teaching focus

Use ten-frames, counters, fingers, and part-part-whole language to practise making the same total in more than one way.

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Foundation + Year 1 ★ Recommended

Magnitude Estimation

Estimate where numbers belong on a number line.

Why this can matter

Students connect number names and numerals to approximate positions, supporting a more continuous sense of quantity.

Teaching focus

Use bounded number-line routines with endpoints and midpoint anchors, then ask students to justify placements with comparison and distance language.

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Year 1 ★ Recommended

Addition

Build flexible addition fact strategies.

Why this can matter

Students build accurate, flexible addition facts and connect counting-on, part-part-whole, and place-value strategies.

Teaching focus

Model addition strategies explicitly, use worked examples, and provide short practice that asks students to explain the strategy used.

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Year 1 ★ Recommended

Subtraction

Connect subtraction to difference and missing parts.

Why this can matter

Students strengthen subtraction as take-away, difference, and missing-addend thinking, linked to known addition facts.

Teaching focus

Use explicit routines with representations and equations, then move to supported practice that compares subtraction strategies.

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