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The Mathematics Curriculum in Primary and Lower Secondary Grades

In Canada, each jurisdiction establishes its own curriculum, and as a result, mathematics curriculum documents for primary and lower secondary grades vary across the country. Although curriculum documents are unique to each jurisdiction, jurisdictions are active in ensuring that their curricular topics and expectations are comparable to those in other provinces and territories. For instance, the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol (WNCP), last amended in May 2011, is a protocol among the provinces and territories of Alberta, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, and Yukon that includes a common curriculum framework in mathematics for the preprimary level to Grade 9, and for Grades 10 to 12. There are WNCP common curriculum frameworks for other subjects as well, which help keep curriculum content comparable across all partnering jurisdictions.6 Similarly, the Atlantic provinces have a long history of working together and in April 2004 reestablished an agency, called the Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training (CAMET), under which New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island collaborate on the governance of preprimary to postsecondary students.7

Curricular commonalities in mathematics across jurisdictions are discussed below:

  • The primary and secondary mathematics curricula across jurisdictions that were in effect for the students assessed in TIMSS 2015 covered the vast majority of topics that were evaluated in the assessment
  • The mathematics curricula across the country at the fourth and eighth grade levels encourage the use of higher-order thinking skills to build connections between mathematical concepts, other disciplines, and the real world8
  • Mathematics curricula at the fourth and eighth grades require the application of the following mathematical processes:
    • Communicating—Using various mathematical communication forms and representations
    • Connecting—Connecting to students’ own experience to view mathematics as useful and relevant
    • Problem Solving—Exploring real-life problems and developing solutions to them
    • Reasoning—Developing mathematical reasoning to help students think logically
    • Representing and visualizing—Using a variety of visual representations to understand concepts
    • Using technology—Reinforcing concepts by exploring relationships and patterns using technology
  • Fourth grade mathematics students across the country are expected to develop knowledge and skills in:
    • Numbers and operations—Working with whole numbers up to 100,000 (e.g., reading, writing, counting, representing, comparing, orders of magnitude, decomposing, properties [even, odd, prime, etc.], adding, subtracting, and mental mathematics); and working with fractions and decimals (e.g., reading, writing, identifying parts, representing, comparing, and simple adding and subtracting)
    • Shapes and space—Measurement; understanding space on axes, on a plane, and on a Cartesian plane; understanding the geometric properties of three-dimensional figures, such as length and angles; comparing figures and shapes; unit conversion; and understanding time and its units
    • Patterns and relations—Identifying numeric and geometric repeating patterns; and equality in an expression
    • Statistics and probability—Collecting, displaying, and interpreting discrete data
  • Eighth grade mathematics students across the country are expected to develop knowledge and skills in:
    • Numbers and operations—Performing arithmetic operations on whole numbers, decimals, fractions and integers (orders of magnitude; comparing, decomposing, and notation; simplifying and reducing fractions; equations; square and square root; bracket rules; and proportions, percentages, rates, ratios, and correlations)
    • Shapes and space—Measurement; understanding the properties of more advanced shapes (quadrilaterals, triangles, polygons, and circles); segmentation; perimeter, circumference, and area; calculating angles; and translation, reflection, and rotation
    • Patterns, relations, and basic algebra—Using graphs and algebraic expressions to represent linear relationships (understanding variables, coefficient, and degree); and performing operations on algebraic expressions and solving for variables
    • Statistics and probability—Collecting and organizing data (surveying, sampling, minimum, maximum, range, and mean); creating statistical experiments; exploring relationships; making predictions; calculating probabilities; and interpreting likelihoods