Mathematics

At our school, we teach mathematics to all children, whatever their ability or individual need. Through our Quality First mathematics teaching, we provide learning opportunities that enable all pupils to make good progress. Every child has an equal right to be taught mathematics, in daily lessons of approximately 1 hour. There may be times when it is more appropriate for Foundation Stage to have a short session; Key Stage 1 sessions to be approximately 45 minutes in length and for Key Stage 2 sessions to be over an hour.

Our mathematics curriculum is based upon White Rose Maths. It provides all the elements that teachers need to teach maths mastery with confidence and to encourage children to talk using maths language. We use the White Rose Maths scheme from Reception through to Year 6. This is enhanced with resources including those provided by the White Rose Hubs, the National Centre of Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics and NCETM and the Nrich Maths Project.

Teachers are provided with an additional three planning days per year in addition to their PPA, to plan. As part of this process, teachers need to plan the following for mathematics lessons:

• Precise questioning to test conceptual and procedural knowledge.
• How and when manipulatives will be used within in each lesson to scaffold difficult tasks.
• Low stake quizzes to support learners’ ability to block learning and increase space in their working memory.
• Tasks and challenge questions to challenge pupils to apply and deepen their learning and mathematical reasoning.

Mathematics is a symbolic, abstract language. To decode this language, symbols need to come alive and speak so clearly to children that it becomes as easy to understand as reading a story. We believe that all students, when introduced to a key new concept, should have the opportunity to build competency in this topic by taking the concrete-pictorial-abstract approach.

Concrete – students should have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand what they are doing.
Pictorial – students should then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations. These representations can then be used to reason and solve problems.
Abstract – with the foundations firmly laid, students should be able to move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.

In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), we relate the mathematical aspects of the children's work to the Development Matters statements and the Early Learning Goals (ELG), as set out in the EYFS profile document. Mathematics development involves providing children with opportunities to practise and improve their skills in counting numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems, and to describe shapes, spaces, and measures. The profile for mathematics areas of learning are: number (ELG 11) and shape, space and measures (ELG 12). We continually observe and assess children against these areas using their age-related objectives. We then plan the next steps in their mathematical development through a topic-based curriculum.

There are opportunities for children to encounter maths throughout the EYFS (both inside and outside) – through both planned activities and the self-selection of easily accessible quality maths resources. Whenever possible, children’s interests are used to support delivering the mathematics curriculum. Towards the end of Reception, teachers aim to draw the elements of a daily mathematics lesson together so that, by the time children move into Year 1, they are familiar with a structured lesson / activity.

All children will have Quality First Teaching. Any children with identified SEND or in receipt of Pupil Premium funding may have additional or different work to their peers, depending on their needs, in order to access the curriculum. As well as this, our school offers a demanding and varied curriculum which provides children with a range of opportunities to enable them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve highly from their starting points.

Through our teaching we continuously monitor pupils’ progress against expected attainment for their age and make formative assessment notes where appropriate. We use these to inform our discussions in termly Pupil Progress Meetings and update our summative school tracker. The main purpose of all assessment is to ensure that we are always providing excellent provision for every child. Assessment in mathematics takes place daily using a range of strategies such as marking of work, giving feedback and verbal discussions with children.

We measure the impact of our curriculum using the following methods:

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes;
• Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their maths lessons and speak about how they love learning about maths. They can articulate the context in which maths is being taught and relate this to real life purposes.
• Termly Progress in Understanding Mathematics Assessment (PUMA) which is a suite of termly standardised maths tests which enable school to track progress, predict future performance and benchmark against national averages
• Pupil Moderation staff meetings where pupils’ books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their classes' work
• Moderation of children’s work at the end of each Key Stage
• Formal reporting of standards at the end of each Key Stage
• Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum to parents