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Maths

Our Intent:

The National Curriculum states:

“Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.”

As a school, we are committed to;

  • ensuring our curriculum prepares children for the next stage of their educational development, both within and beyond their current Key Stage.
  • developing our children’s fluency and their automaticity (their speed of recall of mathematical concepts)
  • providing our children with a range of strategies and confidence to complete calculations, reasoning and problem solving scenarios.
  • having a clear progression in the teaching sequence between concrete, pictorial and abstract learning (Concrete- manipulative materials such as bead strings, dienes materials etc, Pictorial – pupils drawing models to represent the calculation or problem and abstract- children completing a calculation mentally or using a formula or process)
  • recognising the importance of number facts and relationships between concepts
  • developing in our children a positive relationship to Mathematics and appreciate its importance and significance in their lives.

How we plan maths

Throughout Key Stage 1 and 2, we use White Rose Maths to support teaching and learning. This provides a framework for teachers to use the mastery approach when teaching mathematics. We teach using a ‘Ping-Pong’ style, whereby the teaching is collaborative and children are guided through learning objectives in small, achievable steps. Teachers monitor children’s understanding constantly throughout the lesson and the pace is adjusted to ensure that learning is secure. We seek further guidance from the DfE document, ‘Mathematics Guidance: key stages 1 and 2’ when necessary. We recognise the importance of using the ‘Ready to Progress’ criteria.

In addition to the above, The Early Years team uses “Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)” for planning mathematical opportunities. This ensures that our children experience continuity in teaching styles and pedagogy.

These materials provide the long term overview of the teaching sequence and day to day ideas for short term planning.

Implementation – how we teach maths

Early Years:

Within our Early Years setting, the children have many opportunities to approach mathematical concepts through;

Adult Led Activities: These are built into the weekly timetable where children are directly taught mathematical concepts and provided with adult supported opportunities to practise and explore. Our Early Years team understand the close relationship between talk and understanding Mathematics.

Child initiated learning: Opportunities for children to independently explore mathematical concepts are developed through the provision both inside and outside the setting.  There are specific maths areas with a range of materials for the children to explore and additional opportunities are planned and set up in the weekly timetable.

Our Early Years team understand the close relationship between talk and understanding Mathematics. We carefully monitor children to support their speech and mathematical language use.

Key Stage 1 and 2

We believe that the greatest impact on learning is the daily lived experiences of the children in classrooms, and that is determined by how teachers teach. We believe that teachers should lift the curriculum from the page and enact it for the benefit of all learners.

We believe that children benefit from a balance between a curriculum that focuses on coverage and depth. We aim to ensure that learning is responsive to the needs of our children. Planning is adapted to ensure the children’s understanding at the end of each sequence is secure. We ensure that gaps and misconceptions are identified at the beginning of a module and planning is adapted to meet the needs of the students.

Our daily maths lessons might include;

  • Whole class direct teaching with clear and progressive modelling of concepts and procedures with sequences of varied examples
  • Children being shown a completed model, see a model being done, complete one with staff support and have a go independently or with further support.
  • The use of core manipulatives and representations to support access to learning and to deepen children’s understanding
  • Rehearsal of core facts and strategies through games, songs and repetition to aid the children’s fluency.
  • Mathematical talk being given high status and supported by teachers’ questioning. E.g teachers will ask questions such as “Prove it”, “Explain” and “True or false?”
  • Working walls in each classroom.
  • Challenge for pupils grasping concepts quickly is provided through depth and breadth of experience.
  • Opportunities throughout the week for children to reason and problems solve.
  • Differentiation is achieved through:

– progressively harder challenge questions/ activities

– Level of support or extension provided by adults in the classroom

– Use of manipulatives. These may be used to in terms of a progressive concrete – Pictorial- abstract method (CPA) or may be used to help deepen understanding.

– Questioning   increase in challenge through adjustment for depth and breadth to whole class learning.

  • LSAs supporting individual and groups effectively
  • Short mathematical interventions (e.g booster groups, small maths additional actions, pre-teaching) will be developed where necessary.

Flashback Four sessions:

We value fluency and encourage the automaticity of key number facts and concepts. An important part of fluency is retrieval practice. We help and encourage pupils to reactivate knowledge and skills in regular, well-spaced fluency sessions. This aims to help children store these in long-term memory. When the children develop automaticity and fluency of facts, this reduces pressure on working memory.

Our Flashback Four sessions are 10-15 minutes of high-impact learning tasks. They are pitched at the whole class, at age-related expectations. They happen at least 3-4 times a week and can be taught at the beginning of a Maths lesson or at another, convenient time in the day. Learning tasks are based on skills previously taught and are repeated each session with small adaptions. They may include, where appropriate: written methods, mental strategies (including times tables), time, measures- conversions, roman numerals, geometry language, angles, shapes and arithmetic sessions.

Impact

How the school has developed its systems for tracking attainment and progress

  • During the lesson and when marking our teachers use AFL (Assessment For Learning) techniques to assess whether children may need additional time on skills and concepts or whether they may need to be covered again in more detail, through revisiting previous learning sequences.
  • We also use White Rose Maths end of module assessments to judge and monitor progress.
  • Y2 and Y6 are presently assessed against the TAFs (Teacher Assessment Framework).
  • Termly data is analysed by the Subject leader, class teachers, and SLT – in Pupil progress meetings, HIP meetings etc.
  • The subject leader and SLT also monitor and look at the books of the children to monitor their progress.