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
• 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 Much Marcle C of E Primary, these skills are embedded within lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children can recognise the importance of maths in the wider world and that they are also 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.

Using a sustained oracy approach, we have woven oracy into our school’s DNA, ensuring current and future students have access to a high-quality oracy education. In maths, this means that we aim to develop the oracy skills of our children to enable them to deepen their understanding. Stem sentences are used across school to develop mathematical vocabulary and they support children to reason verbally before writing their responses. We aim to empower our children to question and challenge each other as we believe a high-quality oracy education is vital to not only improve academic outcomes of children but also to foster their confidence and wellbeing. By providing our children with the opportunity to talk about maths, we aim to diminish ‘maths anxiety’.

How we do this

Using White Rose Maths mixed aged schemes of work, lessons are broken down into small, connected steps that gradually unfold the concept, providing access for all children and leading to a generalisation of the concept and the ability to apply the concept to a range of contexts. Teachers reinforce an expectation that all children can achieve high standards in mathematics and children learn that we can learn from the mistakes we make. Rather than getting the correct answer straightaway, it is important to understand the journey we take to get there.

We aim to place investigations, problem solving and reasoning skills at the heart of our mathematics teaching. The expectation is that all children welcome challenge, can link mathematical topics to each other and (through discussion) build a strong understanding of the relationships between them.

Through careful assessment, planning and preparation, we aim to ensure that all children progress once the basic concept is understood. All children are given the opportunity to use manipulatives to enhance their understanding of each mathematical concept (where required), they may then be asked to create or show examples of how this could look pictorially. This ensures that all children can make clear links between concepts, can see what is happening, can see the changes that have taken place and the outcomes of that method. Once this new material is grasped, the children will independently access a range of fluency challenges leading on to rich problem solving and reasoning tasks.

Where we have children who are significantly behind due to SEND needs, teachers may need to adapt their planning to meet the needs of these children.

Foundation Stage:

In EYFS, teachers follow the NCETM’s Mastering Number programme and is supplemented with White Rose Maths for the teaching of shape, space and measure. Mastering Number is a project which aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Attention will be given to key knowledge and understanding needed in Reception classes, and progression through KS1 to support success in the future. Children are given the opportunity to work in small groups to reinforce their learning as well as using the carefully constructed areas of continuous provision to consolidate their learning.

Year 1 – Year 6

In Years 1 and 2, the children follow the NCETM’s Mastering Number programme. This is taught as an additional 15 minutes per day. This ensures progression from Reception to Year 2 and focusses on developing number fluency within these phases. In addition to this, for their main maths sessions, Year 1 and 2 children follow White Rose planning along with KS2. 

In Year 3 and 4, the children follow the NCETM’s Mastering Number programme. This is taught as an additional 15 minutes per day.  These sessions focus on automaticity of multiplication and division facts.

In Year 5 and 6, arithmetic skills are embedded through daily R.A.M (Raising Attainment Maths).

The lesson input has the following structure:

Review

Children will complete work on whiteboards or in jotters to complete their ‘Flashback 4’ retrieval task. This is not a teaching moment but is used to retrieve learning from previous years, months weeks and days. Teachers will also use this as an assessment opportunity to identify any gaps in previous learning.

Explore

Children are introduced to a new step with a problem or misconception to explore. They will discuss possible ways of solving the problem before the teacher teaches them the skills needed to do so. This helps the teacher to identify any misconceptions.

CPA Teacher-led Learning

Representations are used to expose the mathematical structure being taught, the aim being that students can do the maths without recourse to the representation as they progress. The class teacher models and teaches the skills required. Ping-pong teaching is used to encourage mathematical discussion and collaboration between children and both the children and teacher will offer challenging and probing questions to dig deeper into their understanding. The aim is for the ideas taught to be understood deeply; not merely be passively received but worked on by the student: thought about, reasoned with and discussed with others.

Work in books will follow the following structure:

Varied Fluency

A variation of questions where careful choice of what and when to vary have been considered. Careful choice of what the variation will draw attention to will be taken by the teacher. Teachers will aim for no more than five questions (there may be more than one of the same type of calculation used in one question e.g. 2×3, 4×4, 5×5 can all be part of one question). Manipulatives and or pictorial representations may be used throughout to support abstract representations and fluency might be revisited a number of times for those children who find the concept difficult. The questions should increase in difficulty to ensure that children who may not access reasoning and problem solving questions independently are still making progress within the lesson.

Reasoning and Problem Solving

Children are presented with a task which requires them to think about the concept in a slightly different way. They should also be introduced to more complex reasoning and problem solving, explaining their route to solving them. The vocabulary of explanation must be modelled initially and then is expected from the children as they demonstrate their thought process. Stem sentences will support this. Pictorial representations may be used to support an explanation (if appropriate).

Diving Deeper Children should be given the opportunity to deepen their understanding through more of an investigational approach.

Impact

By developing a growth mindset approach to mathematics, we aim to teach the children to have high expectations with the belief that every child can achieve and thrive in mathematics. Our mathematics curriculum will support our children to be the best version of themselves.