English and Swedish year-one teachers’ number-related learning goals: the influence of intended and received curricula

In this paper, drawing on semi-structured interviews with generalistteachers of year-one children in England and Sweden, we examinecomparatively the influence of the intended curriculum (teachers inboth countries work within mandated national curricula) and thereceived curriculum (the collectively assumed efficacious practicesand goals handed down from one generation of teachers to thenext) on teachers’ expressed number-related learning goals. Analyses, framed by a literature-derived and curriculum-independent setof eight forms of number-related competence each implicated inlater mathematical learning, identified both similarities and differences in the two groups’ expressed goals. Key similarities concernedexpectations that all children should become additively competent,supported by supplementary goals concerning systematic counting,number bonds, the number line and an appropriate mathematicalterminology. Key differences concerned English teachers’ stronglyexpressed emphasis on place value and a desire for children to learnto multiply. Overall, the strongly-framed English curriculum appearsto influence teachers’ goals more than the weakly-framed Swedish,while Swedish teachers seem to draw on a received curriculum moreclosely aligned with the literature-derived developmental goals thanthe English. Finally, when set against the literature-derived andcurriculum-independent developmental goals, the English curriculum, unlike the Swedish, expects year-one children to learn muchage-inappropriate material.