The 2014 National Curriculum for Maths aims to ensure that all children:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics
- Are able to reason mathematically
- Can solve problems by applying their Mathematics
At Hunton and Arrathorne, these skills are embedded within Maths lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are also able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. We are committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject and supporting them through innovative teaching styles, accompanied by rich resources and cross-curricular links.
We have bespoke calculation policies for both written and mental calculations which demonstrate what progress looks like across school. These calculation policies have been designed with our children in mind and are in fully in line with the National Curriculum. As a basis for our learning we follow White Rose Maths Mixed Age Planning and the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning for our children. Teachers use these planning tools as a start point for objectives; ideas of reasoning and challenging children to work at greater depth. They then use a variety of other resources to supplement the WRM scheme and give our children the varied diet of mathematics they including the Teaching for Mastery documents which further propel us towards our goal of children in all year groups and of all abilities developing strengths in their reasoning and problem-solving skills. This approach is further developed through our involvement in the Maths Hubs ‘Teaching for Mastery’ programme. As a school, we follow the CPA (concrete-pictorial-abstract) approach – ensuring children are given access to concrete manipulatives, varied fluency and a range of reasoning and problem-solving opportunities. This underpins both our lessons and our learning environments.
Within each small step, teachers follow an approach of ‘Teach It’ which includes clear modelling; ‘Twist It’ where varied fluency is applied and ‘Deepen It’ where reasoning and problem solving is applied. We recognise that sometimes, this will happen over more than one lesson as children may need the opportunity for deep practice. Mental and written calculations, as well as counting skills, are taught through the National Curriculum mathematics lessons. In Lower Key Stage 2, these skills are further embedded with daily mental arithmetic sessions to prepare pupils fully for the Multiplication Check at the end of Year 4. These are supplemented by daily ‘Flashback 4’ sessions in all classes which take place first thing every morning. Sessions provide pupils the opportunity to consolidate or learn new calculation skills and cover whole class gaps in learning. Children in Reception and Year 1 have daily ‘Mastering Number’ sessions to embed number-sense and fluency.
Alongside planning and progression documents, to aid teacher’s in their delivery of mathematics lessons the policy ensures consistency for our children in terms of work-books, learning environments and lesson structure.
We have developed a system for teaching mathematics which is consistent across school and in line with our intent for all children to be able to master mathematics confidently.
We follow the White Rose Scheme of Work, using the small steps to support planning but adapted to meet the needs of our children. Reception for ‘Mastering Number’, Year 1 and Year 6 follow single-aged planning and Years 2/3 and 4/5 follow mixed aged planning. We supplement this with guidance from the WR scheme materials to ensure that pupils are taught skills and knowledge systematically though we encourage children to provide a ‘varied diet’ and draw on resources from elsewhere as well. By supplementing this with our bespoke approach within lessons, we can be confident that pupils receive a comprehensive and varied range of mathematical tasks. Please see our long-term plan below; whilst White Rose resources, including mixed age planning, can be found here:
https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/primary
The school has a supportive ethos and our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievement of others. Children can underperform in Mathematics because they think they can’t do it or are not naturally good at it. Our programme addresses these preconceptions by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success in Mathematics by developing a growth mindset. Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child. Children are encouraged to be ‘risk takers’ and to challenge themselves within Maths lessons in line with our curriculum aims. Our mathematics curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. Within each objective, children should access varied fluency, the opportunity to reason and problem solve. Children use mathematics books to record their progression which are marked in accordance to our feedback policy.
The expectation is that the majority of the children will move through the domains of mathematics and where needed, will access ‘keep up’ interventions to ensure they do not fall behind. Staff monitor this through the use of the Insight Tracker assessment package which is formally monitored on a termly basis. In conjunction with this, teacher’s make sound teacher assessment judgements through the use of summative assessments and past SAT’s papers for Y6. Rigorous assessment of this tracker ensures gaps are closed readily and children are secure in their mental knowledge at the end of each stage of learning.
