Mathematics
Mathematics at Sandiway Primary School
Together, we take our children on a journey that is engaging, exciting and empowering for all.
The leader for mathematics in our school is: Mrs Katie Sparks
At Sandiway Primary School, we aim to:
Engage: Provide opportunity for all children to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems.
Excite: To develop all children’s interest and enjoyment of mathematics, helping to instil a positive attitude towards the subject and ability to apply their maths skills in a variety of situations.
Empower: To ensure all children experience a progressive curriculum that develops understanding of the world, have the ability to reason mathematically, have an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.
Intent - What Do We Aspire for Our Children?
Our Curriculum Intent for Mathematics
At Sandiway Primary School, Mathematics is a fundamental part of each day. We believe that Maths teaches us how to make sense of the world around us and empowers our children to gain essential life skills as problem solvers and critical thinkers. We aim to provide children with the skills in order to develop the ability to calculate, to communicate, to reason and to solve problems in real life contexts. This enables children to explore, understand, and appreciate relationships and patterns in both number and shape in their everyday life.
As part of our Sandiway “ROCKs” ethos, we believe all children can master mathematics. We wish to promote engagement, excitement and enthusiasm for mathematical learning through practical activities, cross-curricular links, exploration and discussion. We aim to promote confidence, resilience and competence with numbers and the number system through children working hard, making mistakes and pushing themselves to achieve. This in turn will equip children with learning behaviours that will support them into further education and beyond.
“Metacognition is an important skill that children must develop if they are able to be adaptable in the global community"
Ian Loynd
Three key aims at the core of our mathematics curriculum at Sandiway are:
- For children to be fluent in the relevant fundamentals of mathematics,
- For children to reason creativity, identify patterns, be mathematically inventive, think flexibly using stem sentences,
- For children to solve realistic routine and non-routine problems with increasing independence.
By achieving these aims, Sandiway children will leave Year 6 as knowledgeable, skilful and confident mathematicians who are empowered, engaged and excited for the next phase of their learning.
Implementation - How Will We Deliver the Curriculum?
Our maths lessons follow White Rose’s program of study that meet the requirements of the National Curriculum 2014. Learning is carefully sequenced and progressive taking into account what has been taught before, and what knowledge and skills are needed for the next stage of our children’s mathematical development. Key ‘small step’ are planned using the White Rose resources. Some White Rose blocks have been adapted and moved to different points within the term and some units have been speared into smaller blocks of learning. This is to provide time for reflection and revision of previous learning, as well as engaging children with a variety of topics over a term.
High quality resources:
White Rose premium resources are used to support the implementation of our curriculum through the CPA approach (concrete, pictorial, abstract). However, to ensure that children have an enriching mathematics curriculum, teachers carefully select other resources to support their teaching. Through the use of these tools we ensure:
- Teachers introduce new concepts in a logical sequence to avoid cognitive overload.
- Concepts are taught through high quality mathematical models, images and tools.
- Mathematical models are consistently used through school.
- Teachers are supported with their subject knowledge.
- Our calculations policy is consistently applied.
Linking Curriculum and Pedagogy
We have a researched informed approach to teaching mathematics. Therefore, our school has adopted a lesson design philosophy that links closely to Rosenshine's 'Principles of Instruction.' A large emphasis of our teaching and curriculum design is centred around ensuring children retain the concepts they have been taught. One of the ways we do this is by providing opportunities for daily retrieval practice. This is done through frequent, short burst tasks called 'Flashback 4'. These quizzes recap learning from the previous lesson, previous week, last term, and preceding year.
High quality maths vocabulary is clearly modelled in the correct way in during lessons in order to develop children’s knowledge. Children are encouraged to use the correct mathematical language and terminology to discuss their mathematics and to explain their reasoning using purposeful stem sentences.
Daily lessons are taught with a balance between whole class work, group teaching, practical tasks and individual practice to encourage mathematical talk, support and independence. High quality maths lessons ensure children are secure with fundamental mathematical skills, knowledge and develop deep, meaningful understanding of mathematical concepts. It is essential that children understand the concepts behind the mathematical thinking and not just learn the process. Using our “I do, you do” lesson structure, staff will identify any gaps in learning and any opportunities to address misconceptions.
Pupils are seated in mixed ability groups; however, teachers may group children by ability if they feel it best suits the needs of the children within that lesson. A typical lesson will include the following elements:
- FB4 – daily recap of prior learning,
- Hook - new learning and introducing key vocabulary often through a problem solving task;
- Main teaching activity including progression in fluency, reasoning and problem solving tasks.
- Guided practice – new learning is practiced during whiteboard work.
- Independent tasks are set for all children to access and they strive for 5 questions to be answered. A scaffold is provided for children who may need support (e.g. teacher/TA support, use of apparatus, smaller steps). Challenge tasks are set each day to stretch and apply thinking in a variety of contexts.
- Review providing opportunity for the children to explain/model what they have learnt.
There are opportunities outside of the main lesson for children to revisit and revise prior learning. Maths Fluency Books are used as children arrive during registration time. These tasks include questions covering all topic areas of the maths curriculum that have already been taught. These sessions could also include mental maths questions which are planned to cover oral work and mental/arithmetic calculations – this will involve the whole class in tasks which again aim to revisit and revise previous learning.
Impact - How Do We Know Our Mathematics Curriculum is Effective?
By implementing the intent, children should be confident in the following areas:
- being fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
- solving problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios
- reasoning mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.
- having 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.
It is the role of the maths subject leader to ensure continuity and progression across the whole school. This is carried out through the following opportunities: book looks, learning walks, pupil voice, teacher voice and moderation meetings both in school and with Trust schools. Pupils progress meetings are also held within team meetings on a termly basis and middle managers report to SLT. This information is used by the maths subject leader to amend any intervention groups and ensure that those children who are not working at age related expectations are provided with the support they need.
Pupil Voice
Each term, the views of children from across the school are sought to assess our children's enjoyment of mathematics.
Assessment
The assessment of maths at Sandiway is through half termly NTS assessments in both arithmetic and reasoning from Y2 – Y6. The analysis of these assessment informs and identifies gaps in learning which teachers carefully plan and sequence within daily flashback 4’s or morning fluency questions. Furthermore, our lesson design structure ensures misconceptions are identified during the lesson and immediately addressed through verbal feedback. Statutory testing is completed in Y2, Y4 and Y6.
Teacher judgements are made to identify elements in children’s independent work judging them as working towards, expected and greater depth within their current year group. Throughout the cycle the teacher will be responding to children’s work providing praise, support, encouragement and next steps to move their work forward.