The aims of SURF

At its core, SURF is not a prescriptive program. It is an organising framework, which can be employed in a variety of ways, depending on the preferences of the teacher and the learning needs of particular students. Indeed, the SURF framework has been developed to benefit students, teachers and the school community more broadly. Specifically, SURF aims to:

• refine and better focus the teaching of mental math strategies at the school;
• develop stronger links between what is being taught and the current learning needs of individual students;
• ensure that different teachers have a shared understanding of particular mental math strategies and are approaching the teaching of these strategies in a consistent manner;
• rovide a highly visual framework for representing these strategies, which can be utilised by teachers and students alike;
• place more emphasis in the curriculum on meta-cognition as it relates to mental math strategies;
• place more emphasis in the curriculum on the acquisition and understanding of mathematical language.