Key Information
Maths
Intent
Our intent for Mathematics is to teach a rich, balanced and progressive curriculum using Maths to reason, problem solve and develop fluent conceptual understanding in each area.
At St Paul’s, we aim to inspire all children to reach their full academic potential. In Mathematics, this means ensuring a curriculum that is fully inclusive of all children which:
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Develops children’s knowledge and understanding of Mathematical concepts whilst enabling them to practice and sharpen skills and methods.
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Enables them to think critically and communicate their understanding.
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Gives them opportunities to apply learnt mathematical skills in different contexts across the curriculum.
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Provides opportunities to develop problem-solving skills useful for maths and across the curriculum.
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Our curriculum allows children to better make sense of the world around them relating the pattern between mathematics and everyday life.
This policy is set within the context of the school’s vision, aims and policy on teaching and learning. As a result, of their learning in Mathematics and problem solving across the curriculum children will:
- Be prepared for applying their skills effectively in everyday life situations, in their future learning and in the work place.
- Have the building blocks in place and to provide a solid foundation to lead onto secondary, further and higher education.
Implementation
Our mastery approach to Mathematics
At St Paul’s, we have adopted a mastery approach using White Rose Maths as a programme of study to support our staff with the planning, teaching and learning of Mathematics. The programme provides planning support for EYFS up to Year 6.
White Rose Maths provides a clear consistent plan for Maths over the year with each year group being provided with a termly overview. Each year group’s learning builds on previous knowledge and skills with common misconceptions also being identified to support teachers further. Currently, due to disruption caused during the pandemic, White Rose Maths has ensured that within each unit of learning, key areas of learning are reviewed before progressing.
Depending on the nature of the topic and the activity planned, the structure of a daily Maths lesson may vary, however, typically, our Maths lessons consist of:
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A daily counting session – this takes a variety of forms such as the use of a counting stick, songs, times table ladders etc to cater for the range of learning styles that a classroom can present.
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A review of learning – this can be a discussion as a class of previous learning or a written task that children complete.
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Sharing of key vocabulary that will be used within the lesson – this often takes the form of a call and response between teacher and class before discussion of new words or a revision of vocabulary definitions.
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Fluency teaching – the children are taught the key concept of the lesson. During this part of the lesson, children are actively encouraged to work collaboratively to solve questions using a taught method. In some lessons, a talk task is used to encourage children’s use of key vocabulary and to enable them to practice further key skills.
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Problem solving and reasoning – a task where children are required to explain their understanding of a concept. Children are encouraged to use full sentences when answering these questions using our ‘Prove it’ sentence stems.
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Independent task
The use of White Rose allows our teachers to plan and deliver high-quality Mathematics lessons to our children. We are dedicated to enabling our children to achieve academic mastery in Mathematics which we do through the use of a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach. Children use manipulatives to represent mathematical concepts before moving to pictorial representations, and finally abstract representation (i.e. numerical symbols). This enables our children to build solid foundations in their understanding of maths, which is vital in order to master the subject. Throughout a sequence of lessons, children are encouraged to move between these and different stages (sometimes returning to concrete or pictorial) in order to fully understand a mathematical concept.
In addition to our main Maths lesson, we also have Mini Maths sessions across KS1 and LKS2 and 10 in 10 sessions in UKS2.
In KS1, we follow Number Sense Maths to allow our children to learn and practice twelve key strategies to build their fluency of addition and subtraction facts within 20. These strategies are broken down into six strands, four of which are taught in Year 1 and two taught in Year 2.
In LKS2, we focus our Mini Maths sessions on the learning of times tables which is the key to unlocking many other areas of maths. The children work on a times table over a two-week period. The first week is focused on building a conceptual understanding of the multiplication table. This is achieved through playing collaborative games where the children explore multiple representations. The second week is focused on the procedural understanding of a times table. Again, children play games where they are required to call upon their times table knowledge to answer a question.
In UKS2, we use a 10 in 10 session where teachers use their knowledge of the end of year group expectations to support children with their fluency in areas across the maths curriculum. Children are expected to answer the ten questions in the 10 minutes provided to help build their mathematical resilience and pace.
Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract (CPA) Approach
Children learn mathematics through the ‘Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract’ approach as shown in the Calculation Policy. Children will use manipulatives to represent mathematical concepts before moving to pictorial representations, and finally abstract representation (i.e. numerical symbols).
Teachers model different ways of representing solutions to a problem in order to develop children’s conceptual variation and reasoning skills. Children should be encouraged to move between these and different stages (sometimes returning to concrete or pictorial) in order to fully understand a mathematical concept.
Impact
The impact of our Mathematics curriculum is for children to understand the relevance of what they are learning in relation to real world concepts. We have fostered an environment where Maths is fun and it is OK to be ‘wrong’ as we learn from our mistakes. Our children develop a growth mind-set and make measurable progression against their own targets.
Maths books show evidence of fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Our feedback and interventions are supporting children to strive to be the best mathematicians they can be, ensuring a greater proportion of children are on track to be at age related.
Children are given the opportunity to ‘have a go’ and choose the resources they need to help them to learn, along with the strategies they think are best suited to each problem. Children are developing verbal fluency and are able to articulate their reasoning.
Mathematics is a skill fundamental to daily life but is also crucial to the study of the sciences, technology and a range of other subjects which may form the basis of pupils’ future careers.
We want our children to become confident in the fundamentals of Mathematics so that they are efficient in using and selecting the appropriate written and mental methods, underpinned by mathematical concepts.
We want them to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with greater complexity, including in new situations and to model real-life scenarios.
We want them to reason mathematically, by following a line of enquiry and developing and presenting a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT AND RESOURCES
Key Stage 1 and EYFS
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks1numeracy
Key Stage 2
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2numeracy.html
PRIMARY MATHS ARENA - Variety of games for all ages and skill level
http://primarygamesarena.com/Subjects/Maths
Useful links www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/maths/ – as well as homework support this website offers links to fun games and activities. http://www.teachingtables.co.uk/ – times tables http://www.transum.info/Software/Tablesmaster/Tablesmaster.asp – times tables www.mymaths.co.uk – supportive on line lessons
