INTENT

Maths provides children with calculation, reasoning and problem solving skills and a secure knowledge of our number system. Mathematical fluency enables children to reason, make connections, speculate, generalise and prove theories. It ensures that children develop skills and knowledge that are critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. Children will be inspired to approach maths with creativity and curiosity.

IMPLEMENTATION

Mastery Approach: All children are able to achieve in mathematics and therefore children are taught the mathematics curriculum at broadly the same pace. Children who need some additional support to ‘keep up and catch up’ receive scaffolding or targeted adult support within lessons or as part of same day remediation groups. Manipulatives, high quality sentence stems and a variety of representations ensure that children have secure conceptual understanding before moving on to the next chapter of learning.

Mental maths fluency: Fluency comes from deep knowledge and practice. Pupils work hard and are productive. At early stages, explicit learning of multiplication tables is important in the journey towards fluency and contributes to quick and efficient mental calculation. Practice leads to other number facts becoming second nature. The ability to recall facts from long term memory and manipulate them to work out other facts is also important. Daily fluency sessions from EYFS to Year 6 provide children with opportunities to rehearse and practise mental fluency. These are taught as additional, explicit sessions which supplement the hourly maths lesson every day. They also expose children to moving between different mathematical topics efficiently.

Mathematical Knowledge: The mathematics curriculum encompasses number and place value, measurement, geometry, statistics, ratio and proportion and algebra. Lessons are crafted carefully, drawing on evidence from observations of pupils in class. Lesson designs set out in detail well-tested methods to teach a given mathematical topic. They include a variety of representations needed to introduce and explore a concept effectively and also provide worked examples for pupils to replicate.

Teachers are clear that their role is to teach in a precise way which makes it possible for all pupils to engage successfully with tasks at the expected level of challenge. Pupils work on the same tasks and engage in common discussions. Concepts are often explored together to make mathematical relationships explicit and strengthen pupils’ understanding of mathematical connectivity. Precise questioning during lessons ensures that pupils develop fluent technical proficiency and think deeply about the underpinning mathematical concepts. There is no prioritisation between technical proficiency and conceptual understanding; in successful classrooms these two key aspects of mathematical learning are developed in parallel.

Working mathematically: Problem solving is at the heart of every mathematics lesson and children are equipped with the skills and confidence to enable them to try different approaches, persevere and prove their thinking.

Children are encouraged to explain their thinking at every step of the way and prove their answers using mathematical evidence.

CPA: All mathematical learning begins with a concrete approach, giving children the opportunity to explore practically. The concept is then represented pictorially in order to bridge the transition between concrete and abstract representations. Finally, once a child’s conceptual and procedural understanding is secure they will be presented with the abstract representation.