Maths
Our Mathematics Intent Statement:
"To inspire curious, young people to see the creativity and power of mathematics in the wider world, by providing them with the opportuntites to acquire core mathematical skills and proficiency which can be applied successfully and fluently in a range of contexts and problems."
Miss Polom, Maths Lead
Curriculum Design: Sequencing & Progression
At SJA, our approach is designed to ensure pupils gain a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the Maths. We teach the National Curriculum, following the learning sequences designed by ARK.
Our curriculum is designed to provide students with a solid foundation in mathematics. Students will gain a deep understanding of mathematics and enjoy solving mathematical problems. Our curriculum puts a significant emphasis on mathematical skills and the curriculum content has been sequenced in order to promote a depth of understanding.
We aim to develop children’s enjoyment of maths and provide opportunities for children to build a conceptual understanding of maths before applying their knowledge to everyday problems and challenges. Children are guided along a coherent, small step journey together, using concrete, pictorial and abstract representations to explore concepts and build connections, with opportunities to both support and challenge thinking and reasoning.
How Maths is taught at SJA
Lessons are planned in carefully sequenced small steps to ensure our children build on their knowledge and understanding in a logical and systematic way.
Teachers model and children will use concrete, pictorial and abstract models for each topic. Research conducted by the EEF underpins our expectation that both manipulatives and representations will be used in all year groups and across all ability groups to support learning before abstract methods are used; this will support our aim to help children become confident and independent mathematicians, allowing children to select from a range of strategies for both efficiency, to support success and deepen understanding. Children will use mathematical vocabulary consistently in all year groups.
Reasoning and problem-solving methods for calculation are taught alongside fluency and variation. Children will be expected to apply their learning within a range of contexts.
Lessons within KS1 & KS2 follow this structure:
15 minute arithmetic lessons (to advance in their arithmetic proficiency, this is dedicated time in which the children secure their arithmetic skills through retrieval of prior learning and develop their rapid recall of calculation, known facts and concepts)
Retrieval of prior learning through calculations and problems using ‘Flashback 4’. This revises content from the whole maths curriculum to ensure all areas are revisited systematically.
Teachers introduce new learning: children explore a variety of concrete manipulatives, conceptual pictorial variation and abstract methods, depending on the content and their knowledge and understanding. Teachers will model concepts and children will be given opportunities to explore individually and learn from each other through showing and discussing, including explaining and reasoning, their thoughts and ideas. Teaching uses the format of: 'I do, we do, you do' to promote independence and ensuring children are actively involved in representing, calculating and discussing.
Children will then complete an independent tasks, demonstrating their application of their understanding. It is at this point that teachers use their AfL and work with children who they have assessed to need more teaching and support. Some children may move on to problems of greater complexity that may contain more complex steps, combine more than one aspect of maths, a higher level of reasoning, a range of starting points or finding all the possibilities in open-ended investigations.
Mathematicians at SJA
Our aim is for young mathematicians to become:
Confident and able to recall and apply mathematical knowledge in different contexts
Able to explain their methods and thinking processes and apply skills in context
Fluent in different areas of maths
Efficient in applying problem-solving and reasoning skills
Independent thinkers
Making number work fun Maths
Aware of the Maths/ concepts/ process they are doing
Early Years Maths
Teaching throughout Nursery and Reception ensures children develop their conceptual understanding of number through exploratory play. As well as the children learning very important number skills and facts, they learn important skills such as problem solving, understanding and using shapes and measure and developing their own spatial awareness. It is embedded throughout the Early Years environment and links are made as they become secure in the understanding of the world. At the start of this journey, a number of the week is fully explored where the children are able to see it in different orientations and recognise them in concrete and abstract forms which feeds into their curiosity and resilience when working with numbers. From here, they develop their mathematical oracy, discussing one more and less securing their knowledge of basic addition and subtraction. At the end of EYFS, children will have a secure knowledge of the basic ‘building blocks’ of mathematics to enable them to be KS1 ready.
Our remarkable Maths Curriculum in action...
Nursery
Reception
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
National Numeracy Day
Each Year Group took part in a Mathematical scavenger hunt, along with Maths puzzles within class. The theme for the day was ‘Maths is Everywhere’ so that the children could see how Maths fits into our everyday lives and it teaches us essential skills for life in the real world.
