Mathematics
Intent | What and why do we teach what we teach?
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 Mount Street, we are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the world around them in order to build their own cultural capital through enrichment activities, learning about Maths within the wider world as well as within daily Maths lessons.
It is essential children are 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 therefore committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject, as well as an appreciation of the beauty and power of Mathematics in the wider world.
Implementation | What our Maths curriculum looks like and how we teach it.
Our Maths curriculum is ambitious, and this starts right from Nursery using the content from Development Matters, The Early Learning Goals before progressing onto the National Curriculum, aligning with Power Maths and White Rose
It is our contention at Mount Street that all children can be successful in the study of mathematics. We have carefully sequenced our Maths curriculum, so that children learn in sequenced ‘blocks’ and ‘small steps’ that are carefully adapted and spaced (in certain year groups) to build on children’s prior learning at each step.
In order to achieve mastery, our expectation is that, through quality first teaching, all our children will successfully access the learning. We expect the vast majority of pupils to move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, for children who lack fluency, we provide opportunities to consolidate their understanding through additional scaffolding (this could be through adult support, concrete resources or adapted work).
Structure of a Maths Lesson
All Maths lessons must have the following key elements:
- Mental/oral starter to revisit key arithmetical skills
- Whole Class Feedback
- Learning Objective with dual-coded key vocabulary
- Talk Task – to ensure that the children know the key building blocks required for this next step of learning.
- ‘Watch -me’ - Modelling by the teacher
- ‘Help-me’ – Shared learning with the children, led by the children (to include an extension question for early finishers.)
- ‘Show-me’ – Independent whiteboard activity to allow for AfL
- Independent Activity – support in the form of scaffolding, adults or manipulatives.
- Reflection – mini review of what has been learned in the lesson.
All lessons will cater for the individual needs of the children and include some element of reasoning and problem solving which will be modelled as part of the ‘Watch Me’, ‘Help Me’, ‘Show Me’ elements of the lesson . Questioning is a key part of the Maths lesson – letting the children demonstrate what they know and challenging them every step.
Questions and Challenges
Our aim is to ensure that the three core areas of the national curriculum are covered in all our lessons: fluency, reasoning and problem solving. In every lesson, the children have the opportunity to have varied and frequent practice of their Maths skills with the focus on their ability to recall and apply their knowledge rapidly and accurately. The children work their way through the challenges which get progressively more difficult as the concepts are varied in their presentation. For those children that may require additional support in order for them to access their learning, ‘Pre-Warm Up’ and Warm-Up’ challenges are created which are designed as a smaller step or more scaffolded questions in order to promote independence. For those who readily grasp the concept, they may be moved on if they have already demonstrated their competency in that challenge. There will always be two deepening questions available to stretch the more able children.
Reasoning is a key area in all our lessons as our children need to be able to: Describe, explain, convince, justify and prove to be successful in this subject. From Nursery to Year 6, these skills are explicitly taught and children are expected to use them. Mathematical vocabulary is an essential part of each lesson and the children need to understand this within the area they are studying and be able to make rich connections across other areas within this subject. Each lesson provides children with the opportunity to reason through their ideas, use their mathematical language to explore a line of enquiry and problem solve routine and non-routine problems; sentence stems are provided in all lessons.
Where necessary, a range of additional resources are available for use by teachers to support their planning and their creation of the daily challenges and these include: I See Problem Solving; I see Reasoning; NCETM; NCETM Mastery Questions; NRich; Testbase; Talk it, Solve it and White Rose.
Maths in the Early Years
Children in the Early Years experience daily adult directed Maths sessions which build on children’s knowledge and skills across both aspects of Maths: number and shape, space and measure.
Key skills are planned according to developmental need and next steps in knowledge and carefully linked to the EYFS and differentiated accordingly. These skills are developed each day and revisited over the week, building on knowledge and the children’s experience. Number songs play an integral part of this structure, building children’s repertoire through high engagement. These focused planned skills are then woven through the environment for children to revisit with an adult, through adult directed activities and through child-initiated experiences. Children have the opportunity to practice, revisit and consolidate skills and develop their mathematical interests through play. Careful observation and assessment are used to inform future planning whilst intervention happens ‘on the spot’ during continuous provision play.
Opportunities for mathematical exploration are available throughout the setting. The role of the adult to support high levels of critical thinking in developing Maths skills on small and large scales, supports children’s progress and personalized learning.
Oracy
Oracy is at the heart of our school and curriculum. It is important that children can apply their Oracy skills to all lessons including Maths. As with any subject, it is important that children understand the key vocabulary so that they can use it accurately to understand and solve questions, especially in reasoning and justifying activities. Sentence stems will be provided to help them to formulate their answers; teachers will also expect children to answer questions in complete sentences to demonstrate that they have understood. Lesson will sometimes include generalisations and the children will be expected to discuss and repeat these together to ensure that they understand them.
Learning walls
Learning walls can be beneficial to children as a point of reference and a tool to advance their learning. Within all our classrooms, there is an expectation of what needs to be included on all learning walls:
- Current learning including relevant examples/print out of WM, HM or SM
- Key vocabulary relating to current topic
- Stem sentences for reasoning.
- Pictorial learning supports (place value grid, fraction walls, number bonds)
When topics have been taught, teachers may also choose to ‘display’ previous learning points as a point of reference for the children which reflect upon the four main operations.
Impact
At Mount Street we have 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 may underperform in Mathematics because they think they can’t do it or are less confident. Power Maths, alongside other resources and adaptations, help to address these preconceptions by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success in Mathematics by developing a growth mindset.
Regular and ongoing assessment for learning occurs throughout the year. This includes termly Head Start assessments as well as regular, daily teacher assessment to inform teaching across the year and on a day-to-day basis.
We target intervention as a result of these assessments to support and enable the success of each child through daily point of need interventions and carefully adapted activities as well as twice- weekly targeted lessons using White Rose materials to close gaps.
These factors ensure that we are able to maintain high standards, with achievement at the end of Key Stage 2 aspiring to be in line with or above the national average, striving to ensure a percentage of children demonstrating greater depth, at the end of Key Stage 2.
Concepts
Number - Place Value
Number - Addition and Subtraction
Number - Multiplication and Division
Number - Fractions including decimals
Shape, Space and Measures
Statistics
Geometry
Measurement
Curriculum Overview by Year Group
