maths

Curriculum Intent

Why Maths?

Maths is everywhere. We use it every day and will do for the rest of our lives. Maths helps children to spot patterns, make predications and make sense of the world around them. Mathematic Literacy is essential as we rely on it in everyday life.

From using spatial awareness to park your car, reading time and estimating the length of time required when purchasing a car parking ticket, selecting the appropriate volume of trolley or basket, estimating the cost as you fill the basket, making decisions on the best value offers, understanding and using money to pay for goods, and understanding the effect this has on balancing your budget. This one everyday activity encompasses time, measures, money, capacity, fractions, decimals and percentages and spatial awareness, demonstrating the true importance of mathematics in school. Maths really is everywhere.

All jobs now and in the future rely on mathematical fluency and basic number skills, to one degree or another, where the ability to recall number facts is key. It is essential that children have the knowledge and confidence to use and juggle numbers.

But Maths is not just about numbers. As well as mathematical fluency, we believe Maths teaches many important skills which help our children to become confident young people. Logical thinking, systematic reasoning, and the ability to think deeply about a problem, extend into all areas of life.

Maths also provides opportunities for children to work together to solve problems. It gives them the confidence to justify their opinions and explain their reasoning by using precise and accurate vocabulary. We encourage children to have mathematical confidence so they can challenge ideas presented by peers and adults alike, so they can verbalise their ideas and extend their own thinking. It develops children’s social skills by teaching them to actively listen to what has actually been said and to respond appropriately and build on other’s ideas.

We know that maths can be tricky, and so at this school, right from the start we provide opportunities for Mathematical challenges for all children, alongside teaching fluency. We encourage children to look at problems from different angles and know that there may be more than one way to approach a problem. We celebrate the difficulties and mistakes made, to help push children’s learning on, as well as developing growth mind set.

Maths extends to all areas of the curriculum. From spatial awareness, symmetry, patterns in Art, measuring, estimating and predicting in DT, using statistics and presenting data in Science, calculating distances and direction in Geography, ordering key events in History, identifying the patterns of syllables in a Shakespeare Sonnet, coding in ICT, the list could go on. In all foundation subjects the links to maths are highlighted and are seen as a key priority so that children can see the value of maths and apply these skills.

Implementation

At our school teachers must have high expectations of children and promote and instil a positive mind-set about Mathematics. Mathematics is taught daily.

Teachers should use White Rose Scheme of Learning, and adapt these plans to the individuals and class they are teaching. White Rose breaks down mathematical concepts and skills into small steps. This ensures there is a consistent approach, and as they progress through the school they will build on previous learning. They will be familiar with the models, apparatus and strategies taught, so they can build their confidence and independence as they move throughout the school. This maximises learning time.

White Rose is tailored to the needs of children at Harnham Junior School. We use assessment to plan and teach to the children’s gaps. This year, we know that the children have come back to school with significant gaps in their learning. We have identified these in Year groups and also planned to fill them, using White Rose Hub recap lessons as well as Quality First Teaching. We are also placing a particular significance on ensuring fluency, by planning in opportunities for extended practice of skills. Each teacher assesses the knowledge at the end of each unit and spends time teaching to the gaps that have arisen in their class. We aim to ensure that problem solving and reasoning are real life examples that the children can relate to.

Teachers engage their class in whole class teaching, developing carefully scaffolded examples to build knowledge through small steps. They model how to draw pictures to represent their objects and use bar modelling and number lines to show different representations. It is important that children become fluent in basic number recall and times table knowledge.

We believe that all children, regardless of ability, can access problem solving through whole class teaching. We use this opportunity to develop their communication skills, resilience and extend their learning. In this time you will see children engaged and chatting enthusiastically about maths whilst challenging each other. This involves lots of chat, talking to partners and in groups, whiteboard work and discussion.

Teachers will use language like convince me , prove it, show me, give me an example – all which prompt children to think deeply about their learning. Teachers and children model to each other appropriate answers, using sentence stems to support them. AGAT children will have opportunities to construct their answers independently. For these children who grasp a concept quickly, greater depth questions are available to allow children to use and apply that knowledge to different situations.

Impact

We want all children to leave our school understanding the value of number, being able to recall basic number facts and timetables. We want them to feel confident in their ability, be willing to give things a go and to be secondary school ready. We want children to love maths and enjoy the challenges it poses. We want all children to reach their full potential, having made progress in our school, as gaps have been addressed and the curriculum tailored to their needs.

Children will be able to;

Understand place value and read, write, order and compare numbers up to 10 thousand

Add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers using formal methods and solve problems involving all of these

recall and use equivalences between simple fractions, decimals and percentages, including in different contexts.

Have a grasp of algebra

Understand different units of measures and properties of shapes

Present, interpret and analyse different forms of data.

The impact of our maths provision is assessed through termly pupil voice, termly assessments, lesson observations and end of Key Stage Sat results.