Nanyang Enlightenment Public Primary School, Singapore

Abstract: Singapore’s primary mathematics education is centered on problem-solving and oriented toward 21st-century core competencies. Adopting the CPA (Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract) teaching framework, it focuses on cultivating students’ mathematical logic, real-world problem-solving ability and practical application competence. However, current primary mathematics teaching design in Singapore has prominent shortcomings, including rigid traditional teaching modes, formalized CPA teaching implementation, teaching scenarios divorced from local contexts, the absence of unit holistic structured design, and imperfect process-oriented evaluation systems. These problems lead students to rely on mechanical exercise drilling, achieve superficial knowledge comprehension, and suffer from weak knowledge transfer ability, failing to meet the competency-based educational requirements of the 2021 Revised Primary Mathematics Syllabus that emphasizes understanding, application and core literacy. Based on front-line teaching practice at Nanyang Enlightenment Public Primary School in Singapore and closely aligned with the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) assessment orientation and core competency cultivation goals, this paper constructs a localized innovative teaching model from five dimensions: teaching philosophy, unit structure, local scenarios, differentiated activities, and diversified evaluation. It solves core classroom problems such as superficial teaching and the disconnection between learning and application. Combined with authentic local classroom cases, this paper systematically elaborates the implementation strategies, practical effects and optimization paths of innovative teaching design, providing replicable practical references for the implementation of competency-based primary mathematics classrooms in Singapore.

Keywords: Singapore primary mathematics; teaching design innovation; CPA teaching method; core competencies; problem-solving; localized classroom practice