At St Aelred’s, we want all children to enjoy mathematics through a growing self confidence in their ability and provide opportunities for children to retrieve, recall, over learn key facts and reason mathematically ensuring automaticity is achieved. We are committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject, as well as an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics. Maths is a universal language – we aim to help children understand the purpose and the importance of mathematics in the wider world and encourage them to work in a logical way to ensure they are able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts.
Intent
At St. Aelred’s, all children are entitled to access all aspects of the curriculum, enabling them to achieve confidence and competence – ‘mastery’ – in mathematics. The fundamental idea behind mastery is that all children develop a deep understanding of the mathematics they are learning. Learning is carefully sequenced, taking into account what has been taught before, and what knowledge and skills are needed for the next stage of our children’s mathematical development. Mathematics is purposefully planned to be taught explicitly across the wider curriculum in subjects such as (but not limited to) science, history and geography.
In Key Stage 1 and Early Years we aim to develop a strong sense of number. We are taking part in the NCETM’s Mastering Number programme. This will develop firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and confidence and flexibility with numbers.
Implementation
A large emphasis of our teaching and curriculum design is centred around ensuring children retain the concepts they have been taught through a spiral curriculum. The majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Teaching is underpinned by a small-steps curriculum design philosophy and supported by carefully crafted lessons and curated resources to foster deep conceptual and procedural knowledge.
In our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) children are given the opportunity to develop their understanding of number, measurement, pattern, shape and space through a combination of short, formal teaching sessions as well as a range of planned, structured play situations, where there is plenty of scope for exploration and the use of concrete resources. This early exploration and talk forms a strong basis for math in proceeding year groups. In Early Years, children have x4 weekly Mastering Number lessons through NCETM Mastering Number programme and x1 Shape, Space and Measure lesson through the White Rose Maths scheme of learning.
Children from Years 1 to Year 6 study mathematics following the White Rose Maths (WRM) Scheme of Learning. WRM is a blocked scheme, which allows for depth and breadth of learning within each strand of mathematics. Alongside this, we also teach daily additional fluency based activities to embed key concepts and learning. Our weekly planning is tailored to the needs of our children. We have long, medium and short term planning that is progressive and cohesive across the year groups, and provides opportunities to revisit. Teachers teach lessons that are designed on the principle of ‘Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract’, and we provide quality first teaching. Our lessons are structured to allow children to:
Build upon previous learning
Complete Paired Task Talk
Develop Learning
Complete Independent Work
Practise fluency skills
Reason and problem solve
Lessons include the Teaching for Mastery principles
Maths is taught daily in two parts:
- Separate and distinct fluency sessions lead to procedural automaticity and secure recall of core declarative knowledge
- Maths lessons lasting approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Impact
As a result of our Maths teaching at St Aelred’s you will see:
Mathematical concepts or skills are mastered when a child can show it in multiple ways, using the mathematical language to explain their ideas, and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations. Children show a high level of pride in the presentation and understanding of the work. They demonstrate a quick recall of facts and procedures, including the recall of times table. Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their Maths lessons and speak about how they love learning in Maths lessons. They can articulate the context in which Maths is being taught and are able to reason verbally, pictorially and in written form.
We assess the impact of our Mathematics curriculum through a range of methods, including:
Questioning,
Pupil Book Studies
Talking to teachers
Low stakes drop in observations.
Quizzing and retrieval practice
Feedback and marking
Progress in books
Improved pupil outcomes
