Mathematics

Maths

Intent

We believe that the development of mathematics skills and knowledge are vital, not only for children to succeed at school, but also to become successful and resilient adults. Being fluent with numbers, understanding patterns and using logic and problem solving skills are all essential parts of everyday life and help us to understand and change the world around us. 

We strive for all children to leave us as competent and confident ‘masters’ of maths, with deep conceptual and procedural knowledge and an enjoyment of the challenges that mathematics provides. We believe that every child can do maths and want our children to leave us as independent, reflective thinkers, whose skills not only liberate them in maths but also support them across the whole curriculum. 

Core Aims in Mathematics:

• To promote a positive attitude towards mathematics and to enable pupils to develop their confidence in the subject and a motivation to succeed

• To ensure that all children achieve to their highest potential in mathematics and that all pupils are challenged

• To offer a curriculum that allows children to at least meet the age related expectations of the National Curriculum at the end of each key stage

• To allow pupils to see how mathematics is relevant to their everyday life

• To provide opportunities for pupils to use and apply their mathematics skills in real life contexts through the PYP lines of inquiry wherever possible.

We know how important developing and improving skills and knowledge over time are to developing progression.  Our curriculum is designed to allow children to make rich connections and to be able to reason, problem solve and develop fluent conceptual understanding so that learners deepen and broaden their knowledge and skills.  We use the White Rose long term overviews and schemes of learning to ensure that our planned curriculum details the core facts, concepts, methods and strategies that give our pupils the best chance of developing proficiency.  We sequence the teaching of linked facts and methods to take advantage of the way that knowing facts helps learn methods and vice versa 

The curriculum is broken into small steps of learning that carefully sequences content so that our mathematics curriculum is a guarantee of long term learning.    These small steps take into account the hierarchy of knowledge and skills within maths and build these sequentially and progressively to support children in successfully achieving their end goals.    Each step builds on the previous learning steps and interweaves prior content with new concepts, which helps children to grasp the links between topics and to understand them more deeply. 

Maths in Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2)

Our principal focus of maths teaching in Key Stage 1 is to ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value. This involves working with numerals, words and the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), and with practical resources, for example, hands-on manipulatives and measuring tools.

Pupils develop their ability to recognise, describe, draw, compare and sort different shapes and use related vocabulary. Learning and teaching involves using a range of measures to describe and compare different quantities such as length, mass, capacity/volume, time and money.

By the end of Year 2, all pupils know the number bonds to 20 and are precise in using and understanding place value. We place an emphasis on practice at this early stage to aid fluency.

Pupils read and spell mathematical vocabulary at a level consistent with their increasing word reading and spelling knowledge at Key Stage 1.

Maths in Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4)

The principal focus of mathematics teaching in Years 3 and 4 is to ensure that pupils become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and the concept of place value. We make sure that pupils develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers.

Pupils develop their ability to solve a range of problems, including with simple fractions and decimal place value. Learning and teaching also ensures that pupils draw with increasing accuracy and develop mathematical reasoning so they can analyse shapes and their properties, and confidently describe the relationships between them. We ensure that pupils can use measuring instruments with accuracy and make connections between measure and number.

By the end of Year 4 pupils know multiplication tables up to and including the ‘12 times table’ and show precision and fluency in their work.

Pupils should read and spell mathematical vocabulary correctly and confidently, using their growing word-reading knowledge and their knowledge of spelling.

Maths in Upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6)

The principal focus of mathematics teaching in Upper Key Stage 2 is to ensure that pupils extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger integers. This develops the connections that pupils make between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio.

Pupils refine their ability to solve a wider range of problems, including problems involving complex properties of numbers and arithmetic, and problems that demand efficient written and mental methods of calculation. Pupils are introduced to the language of algebra as a means for solving a variety of problems. Learning and teaching in geometry and measures consolidates and extends pupils’ knowledge developed in number. Pupils classify shapes with increasingly complex geometric properties and learn the vocabulary they need to describe them.

By the end of Year 6, pupils are fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division, and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages.

Pupils read, spell and pronounce sophisticated mathematical vocabulary correctly.

Implementation

Lesson Structure

We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in lessons; this will allow for teachers to choose how to most effectively ensure conceptual understanding. 

We use Assessment for Learning opportunities to inform next steps.

We endeavour to set work that meets the needs of all children but is also challenging so that all children have opportunities to master the concepts.

We expect opportunities for pupils to engage in talk:

• developing the children’s oral confidence and ability to reason and explain their thinking by encouraging them to answer in full sentences. 

• using sentence starters and stem sentences to scaffold their responses and feed into how the children record the reasoning into their books. 

• encouraging them to build upon what their peers say and equally challenge one another.  

We follow a Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract approach:

• concrete manipulatives are used to introduce new concepts - children can physically manipulate to explore structure and construct meaning 

• pictorial representations are used to support making connections and transferring understanding, building a bridge to the abstract concepts

• teachers choose the manipulatives carefully to use what will best scaffold understanding

• where appropriate, children will be given some agency, choosing the best manipulative or representation to solve a problem for themselves

Subject Leadership and subject knowledge:

Our White Rose schemes of learning frame the curriculum to support teachers in planning effectively sequenced learning that builds on prior knowledge and skills.     

We ensure that teachers have good subject knowledge through continuing professional development led by the maths leaders and supported by the Trust Curriculum Advisor for Maths. 

We work in collaboration and moderate with other Trust academies and through the teacher group led by the local maths hub.  

Maths Leaders ensure that our school intent is enacted across the school through learning walks, moderation, pupil and staff voice and informal discussions with teachers.

Impact

We use a variety of information to measure the impact of our mathematics curriculum and our teaching:

• Pupil and staff voice 

• Lesson observations and learning walks

• Environment checks and work scrutiny

• Statutory end of Key Stage assessments data

• Internal data (from summative assessments)

In EYFS, the children talk confidently about their Maths learning and can hold a conversation with their peers or adults about their learning. The children have a clear enjoyment of Maths. This confidence of Maths and love of learning is nurtured and developed as the children progress through the school.

Our delivery of Maths at KS1 and KS2 at Paddock Wood Academy allows children to be confident in lessons and can be seen to use appropriate methods and strategies (such as manipulatives, pictorial and written methods) independently. This is reflected in the children’s Maths books where evidence of the CPA approach can be seen. This then feeds into their reasoning tasks which shows when the children have mastered the skills and knowledge taught within lessons.

When considering our long term impact of teaching and learning at Paddock Wood Primary Academy we focus on both end of year targets as well as their end of key stage targets. We strive for our children to reach age expectations at the end of their current academic year as well as their key stage. This includes the end of  KS1 and KS2 statutory assessments as well as the year 4 multiplication check (supported by the use of TT Rockstars). We also think forward to ensuring that our children are well prepared for the secondary Maths curriculum.

At the end of EYFS the percentage of children achieving at least the expected standard in number at the end of 2019 was  73%.

At the end of KS1 78% of children achieved at least the expected standard in Maths in 2019, with 27% achieving greater depth.

At the end of KS2 the Avergae point score for Maths at the end of 2019 was 106