Christine Vale

I'm responsible for product development and adaptation of resources for primary teachers. This includes both literacy and mathematics resources. My current key focus is on the introduction for PRIME Mathematics for Australian Schools. PRIME Mathematics is based on the pedagogy used mainly in Singapore. Singapore is currently the top performing nation in primary mathematics, and there is good reason for that. It is not rote learning. It is excellent, carefully crafted conceptual teaching, that focuses on problem solving. I completed a Masters in education with my research being on problem solving heuristics. However, since being involved with PRIME, I've learnt a great deal myself, and have been supporting teachers through PD. What they are responding to is the pedagogy that gives them a framework so they can support and extend their students with deep understanding that is then able to be applied to problem solving. Already, just after a little more than a year's use, some schools are showing growth well beyond similar schools or the national average in NAPLAN.