Curriculum – Maths

Intent:

When teaching maths at Hutton Henry, we believe that all children need a deep understanding of the mathematics they are learning. This is what we mean by mastery. At our school, the majority of children will be taught the content from their year group only. They will spend time becoming true masters of content, applying and being creative with new knowledge in multiple ways. We believe mastery is achieved when more time is spent on key concepts that are revisited and reviewed. This allows for the development of depth and sufficient practice to embed learning. We believe all children can achieve in mathematics, and teach for secure and deep understanding of mathematical concepts through manageable steps. We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning and provide challenge through rich and sophisticated problems. Pupils are required to explore maths in depth, using mathematical vocabulary to reason and explain their workings. A wide range of mathematical resources are used and pupils are taught to show their workings in a concrete, pictorial and abstract form wherever suitable. They are taught to explain their choice of methods and develop their mathematical reasoning skills. We encourage resilience, adaptability and acceptance that struggle is often a necessary step in learning.

We aim for all pupils to:

· become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.

· be able to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios

· reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.

· have an appreciation of number and number operations, which enables mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately to be successful in mathematics.

Implementation:

Every class from EYFS to Y6 follows the White Rose scheme of learning which is based on the National Curriculum. Schemes of learning are personalised to suit the needs of the school and extra time is allocated in each classes LTP to the areas of maths that are identified as areas of weakness in our ASP data.

Children in EYFS have a daily mathematical focus based on acquiring knowledge of basic mathematical facts and concepts with the EYFS curriculum. Mathematical concepts are also woven throughout their continuous provision. Children in KS1 and 2 have a daily Maths session lasting approximately 1 hour.

We ensure that the majority of pupils will move through the curriculum at broadly the same pace. However, our teachers make decisions about when to progress children, based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. This does not mean that ‘we hold children back’ or that all children access the same questions and same activities all of the time. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly are challenged by ‘going deeper’, being offered rich and more sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Differentiation through depth takes place posing different questions and problems for learners to extend their thinking. Mastery strategies such as ‘Prove it; Compare; True or False are used. ‘Deepening’ through differentiation is important in all year groups, but of paramount importance in our mixed age classes. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material, consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on. A ceiling is not put on children’s learning and flexible grouping is adopted. Support is determined during each lesson to ensure secure understanding based on the needs of the child.

We regard talk in Maths as important and introduce mathematical vocabulary and stem sentences in an age-appropriate way. We encourage children to verbalise their thinking; our teachers ensure that pupils build secure foundations by using discussion to probe and remedy their misconceptions.

We have a range of mathematical resources in each classroom (Maths Zones) including Numicon, Base10 and counters (concrete equipment). These are available in all lessons for children to use as and when required. When children have grasped a concept using concrete equipment, images and diagrams are used (pictorial) prior to moving to abstract questions. Abstract maths relies on the children understanding a concept thoroughly and being able to use their knowledge and understanding to answer and solve maths without equipment or images.

We are focusing on the recall of identified areas whereby children are set a maths task to ensure general maths knowledge and fluency are maintained and developed. These key areas are based upon our ASP data and are amended to reflect this yearly. These may take many forms, for example: arithmetic, specific times tables or several questions about a mixture of maths topics. All KS1 and KS2 children will access this weekly in KS1 and daily in KS2 to embed and become fluent in these areas.

In order to advance individual children’s maths skills in school and at home, we utilise Times Tables Rock Stars for multiplication practise, application and consolidation and Numbots for EYFS and Y1 children to consolidate their early number skills. We also use Mathletics to consolidate and reinforce learning in the classroom and Early Number Sense as an intervention for the children who may need extra support with their basic fluency skills and recall.

Impact:

EYFS

By the end of EYFS, we expect the vast majority of children to achieve the ELGs in Number and Shape, Space and Measure as well as the non-negotiables that every child should know by the end of each key stage.

KS1

By the end of KS1 we expect the vast majority of our children to have developed confidence and mental fluency with… as well as the non-negotiables that every child should know by the end of each key stage.

LKS2

By the end of Year 4 we expect the vast majority of our children to have:

• Become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and the concept of place value.

• Developed efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers.

• Developed their ability to solve a range of problems, including with simple fractions and decimal place value.

• Memorised their multiplication tables up to and including the 12-multiplication table and show precision and fluency in their work.

UKS2

By the end of Year 6, we expect the vast majority of our children to:

• Be fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division, and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages.

• Have deep conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply mathematical knowledge rapidly and accurately.

• Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, using their knowledge of relationships and generalisations, and justify using mathematical language

• Solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

Assessment

Through our teaching we continuously monitor pupils’ progress against expected attainment for their age, making formative assessment notes where appropriate and using these to inform our teaching.

Summative assessments are completed at the end of each term; their results from discussions in termly Progress Meetings and update our summative school tracker. The main purpose of all assessment is to always ensure that we are providing excellent provision for every child.