Maths

Our Intent

The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.

reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language

can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

At Broadwindsor, we recognize that mathematics is a creative, highly inter-connected subject; providing solutions to some of the most intriguing problems throughout history. We teach mathematics as essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. Maths is taught daily and discretely and organised into distinct areas, but pupils are encouraged to make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. Mathematical knowledge and skills being applied in science, ICT and other subjects is also key to our approach.

Language is a central focus in mathematics at Broadwindsor. As well as, being able to read, understand and spell key mathematical vocabulary, we aim for our young mathematicians to become increasingly fluent in their spoken use of mathematical language, enabling them to make decisions, pose questions, communicate their findings, describe relationships; share and justify their thinking. This command of language supports their ability to work collaboratively, explore misconceptions, suggest their own examples and follow lines of enquiry.

As children progress through school, we aim to foster key learning attitudes in our maths curriculum alongside developing essential mathematical skills. Mathematics provides the opportunity to strengthen perseverance, develop imagination through exploring possibilities, build noticing skills, promote collaborative working; encourage flexible thinking and foster risk taking.

Above all, our approach to maths is to foster creative, questioning, efficient, autonomous and collaborative young mathematicians who enjoy the ‘buzz’ of thinking hard to solve real life problems with confidence and skill.

Implementation

In EYFS, children build their mathematical understanding through daily taught sessions as well as through stories and child-initiated play. The environment supports early number recognition and development as well an understanding of numerical patterns. Continuous assessment informs planning and delivery to ensure children make rapid progress.

Across the school, we follow the scheme of White Rose Maths to support the delivery of high-quality lessons that ensure children learn the fundamentals behind the meanings of numbers and are also given the opportunity to explore other key mathematical areas. Learning is delivered in blocks using ‘small steps’ to break down the teaching sequence into achievable parts; this allows children to focus on one concept at a time. When confident to do so, children are set tasks to extend their thinking and encourage them to reason and problem solve. Where children require additional support, ‘scaffolds’ are used to support children further to ensure that they have secured the small step before moving on. For children who understand a concept quicker, challenges are used to deepen and challenge learners further within the curriculum area. Progression documents such as our calculation policy are carefully used to ensure that children are not being stretched outside their year group but rather deepened within it.

Maths lessons are taught daily. At the start of the lesson, teachers spend time recapping and revisiting children’s prior learning. This is followed by teaching which stretches and supports children’s understanding using a variety of questions in varying formats. Children then complete a task, either independently or as part of a group, to demonstrate their skills. Further problem-solving and reasoning challenges provide depth and breadth of learning and allow the teacher to assess the understanding during the lesson.

Outside of the daily maths lesson, children receive additional sessions devoted to number fluency and timestables. In KS2 we follow a systematic approach to developing the rapid recall of tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4. This then continues through upper KS2 to ensure knowledge is retained.

Assessment forms an important element of our curriculum. Termly assessments (TestBase) are used as a diagnostic tool to ensure that teachers are adapting learning to meet the needs of all children and ensure that any necessary interventions are targeted and implemented swiftly.

Impact

As a result of our teaching at Broadwindsor, children will:

Be engaged, highly motivated and resilient and ready to learn maths.

Rapidly recall a range of number facts including their times tables.

Confidently verbalise their thinking and demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways when solving problems.

Have a secure level of mathematics that adequately prepares them for their next stage of learning.

EYFS

From the start of EYFS, children are taught number fluency through a variety of concrete and pictorial activities which supports children to recognise, order and subitise (recognise amounts shown in different ways without the need to count) numbers to ten. By the end of the year, children can partition and develop a deep understanding of all of the numbers to ten.

Through this understanding, children are supported to reach the Early Learning goal and be ready to progress to Year 1.

Key Stage 1

Building on their work in EYFS, children develop number fluency through daily teaching using the White Rose Scheme of Learning. This systematic approach allows children to build key visual pathways and learn important number relationships. This leads to a deep understanding of number and to fluency in addition and subtraction facts. Children can rapidly recall facts such as 8 + 7, rather than relying on counting strategies. This prepares children for work in Key Stage 2.

Key Stage 2

At Broadwindsor, we are passionate about delivering high quality, effective and challenging teaching. We want our children to LOVE maths and SUCCEED within the maths curriculum. Therefore, we felt it important to introduce a way to teach times tables that would give children the freedom and fluency in maths without being a burden to learn. From Year 3, children complete interactive and fun daily sessions on the I-pads; children complete 40 questions that support them to learn an ever-increasing range of times table facts.

By the end of Year 4, children feel confident to undertake the National Multiplication Check. All children continue to consolidate their knowledge through Upper Key Stage 2 to ensure fact retention.