Every child can succeed in maths. Our vision is for all pupils to master maths through deep understanding, careful reasoning, and the ability to apply knowledge creatively in real-life contexts.

Maths

At Our Lady Catholic Primary School, mathematics is an integral aspect of everyday life. We ensure children develop a positive and enthusiastic attitude towards mathematics that will stay with them, providing a foundation for their understanding of the world.

Through a mastery curriculum, all children will develop: skills in mental calculation, problem-solving strategies and articulate their reasoning through the appropriate use of stem sentences and mathematical vocabulary in context. Children at Our Lady Catholic School will develop an enjoyment and curiosity of the subject together with resilience and independence to seek their own challenge.

 

We believe that children should experience the awe and wonder of mathematics as they learn to solve problems; develop ways of looking at patterns; discover efficient strategies and make links between the different areas of maths. We believe maths is a universal language; it helps us to describe, make sense, investigate, understand and respect our ever-changing world.

 

Intent:

We believe every child can achieve in mathematics, and teach for secure and deep understanding of concepts through fluency, reasoning and problem solving. We have high expectations for all our children to both enjoy and be successful in maths. It is our belief that maths ability is not innate, but rather, increased through first quality teaching, effort and hard work. Where possible, we try to make our maths ‘real’, making our learning and experiences relevant to everyday life. We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning and provide challenges through rich and varied problems. We encourage children to use approaches, which work for them, by equipping them with a range of efficient strategies and ensuring an understanding of them. At our school, the majority of children will be taught age related content and will be supported in understanding this through pre-teaching and same day intervention when necessary. We aim to make maths an exciting and varied experience to enable children to be confident mathematicians. We inspire learning through excellent teaching practices that build on prior learning and allow for repetition and progression of skills that build upon high starting points and builds on children’s high starting points so that we are aspirational throughout school. We want to encourage all children to be self-motivated, independent and resilient by being fluent in the basic skills and developing skills that allow them to make mistakes and learn from them. We aim to challenge all children to become excellent mathematicians so that they become fluent, accurate and confident when applying their skills to a range of contexts

 

Implementation

Using a mastery approach to our teaching, we believe children can be confident, enthusiastic and inquisitive learners. Our curriculum is an ambitious, connected curriculum, which is accessible to all pupils. All children are taught a concept in depth over a prolonged unit, moving through small progressive steps to develop a deep, lasting competence and understanding. We want pupils to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, to be able to reason and to solve problems. Our curriculum embraces these National Curriculum aims. At Our Lady Catholic School, we use a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach to support children to understand the maths they are learning and to be able to use it in a real-life context. The “small step” approach means all curriculum objectives are broken down into accessible parts that build on each other so the learning journey is complete.

In our practice, you will see:

• Mathematics delivered using a mastery approach (see appendix a)
• We do not differentiate by number and instead use a model of exposing the maths through concrete resources, pictorial images and abstract calculations (CPA approach) to scaffold and constrain where needed. This provides access to all pupils and elevates the ceiling of learning to enable challenge for all.
• Our children explore, represent and make connections using multiple representations, such as objects, pictures, numbers and symbols, ensuring a depth of understanding and problem solving is developed.
• Talk tasks are used within the lessons format to support a high standard of mathematical language which strengthens conceptual understanding and allows children to explain and reason their understanding.
• Problem solving is essential for children to identify, apply and connect their ideas and to tackle new and more complex problems. All lessons have differentiated challenge for all which is reasoning based.  We encourage children to develop mathematical thinking so they can systemise, generalise and seek out patterns.
• Children are given time and a variety of opportunities to fully explore mathematical concepts and challenge comes from investigating ideas in new and complex ways, rather than accelerating through new topics.
• All pupils attend a maths meeting for 15 minutes daily.  This time is used to rehearse number fluency and to consolidate concepts learnt through the year.
• Times tables and fluency are taught discretely in KS2 
• Same day and next day interventions are timetabled to address misconceptions and to close any gaps identified during the maths lessons
• Staff receive development to ensure that they are skilled and confident in the teaching of maths through weekly observations and CPD
• Maths is assessed using the whole school feedback policy and lessons are adapted daily to meet and personalise learning needs.
• Low stakes testing in the form of end of unit tests will allow for long term memory development and secure understanding of skills.
• Progress is tracked throughout the year using the evaluation questions from the topic knowledge organisers and ongoing assessment.
• Tracking of knowledge in pre and post learning ‘Can I still …?’ questions throughout each topic when appropriate.
• Discussions with the children about their learning.

Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances.

In Nursery – children have access to a variety of mathematical resources to support their early mathematical thinking. Through play, children understand mathematical concepts and vocabulary; they adopt positive attitudes to problem solving.

In Reception - Maths is taught to the whole class in a daily 20-minute discrete lesson. There are opportunities for mathematics woven into continuous provision, both indoors and outdoors and a dedicated Maths area within one of our classrooms. Opportunities for Maths are embedded in our daily practice, for example the use of a tens frame to self-register followed by counting the total number of children and representing this a numeral. There is a focus number each week, this is explored and represented in a variety of different ways.

Mathematics is taught daily for an hour in every class from Year 1 to Year 6. There is a strong focus on language development, using maths vocabulary needed for future learning.

Impact

Our maths curriculum design ensures that the needs of all children will be met through high quality teaching and intervention where appropriate, which leads to most reaching age related expectations at the end of Key Stage 2. Depth for all and time taken for all pupils to grasp concepts increase our level of pupils attaining greater depth at the end of Key Stage 2. Pupil voice shows that children enjoy maths and that are curriculum promotes achievement and increased confidence. Staff comment that the children are resilient, and they will have the skills to correct and learn from their mistakes.

When children leave Our Lady Catholic School, we want them to feel confident mathematicians, prepared for the KS3 curriculum with a love of the subject. In addition, we want them to have deep and secure timetables knowledge. Be able to apply their learning to different contexts. Have a strong number sense and be able to manipulate numbers mentally. Reason and problem solve efficiently and confidently. Children will be able to apply their maths learning in wider contexts through making connections in order to equip them for the wider world. Be self-aware of their capabilities and challenge themselves appropriately.

Inclusion

Our inclusive approach and differentiation allow all children to learn regardless of race, gender, faith, culture, or disability. We select and use resources that positively reflect all of the above. Teachers are aware that children bring to school different experiences, interests and strengths that will influence the way in which they learn science. Teachers will use a variety of teaching styles and strategies to meet the needs of all children in their science learning.

• Inclusion for science is carried out in line with the school’s policies for SEND, More and Most Able, Equal Opportunities and the Disability Equality Scheme.

Monitoring & Review.

The coordination and planning of the maths curriculum are the responsibility of the Maths Lead who also:

• Feedback from the maths mastery programme ways of developing the mastery teaching within the school.
• Organises training for teachers to feel confident delivering the mastering number fluency sessions that take place.
• Supports colleagues in their teaching, by keeping them informed about current developments in maths and providing a strategic lead and direction for this subject.
• Gives the Head Teacher feedback in which he evaluates the strengths and weaknesses in maths and together they indicate areas for further improvement.
• Uses specific allocated regular management time to review evidence of the children’s work / progress and to observe maths lessons across the school.
• Shares best practice regarding maths with teachers and delivers a ‘modelled’ lesson.