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.
Young mathematicians at Broadwindsor, will
- become increasingly fluent with whole numbers, the four operations and the concept of place value; extending their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger integers.
- progressively achieve fluency in using efficient written and mental methods; performing calculations accurately, alongside developing clear connections between operations, including multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio.
- consolidate and extend their knowledge developed in number through geometry, measures and data handling and will be able to classify shapes with increasingly complex geometric properties.
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.