ALL SAINTS CE PRIMARY SCHOOL AND NURSERY MATHS CURRICULUM

Intent

At All Saints CE Primary School and Nursery, we want our children to love mathematics. By delivering a ‘mastery’ approach in Maths lessons, we intend that all children, regardless of their starting point, maximise their full academic potential and leave All Saints with an appreciation and enthusiasm for maths.  Through developing an ability to calculate, to reason and to solve problems, we equip children with the skills to make sense of the world around them. We teach them to become fluent in the fundamentals of Maths, through varied and frequent practice, so that they have the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. We enable children to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, predicting relationships and justifying answers using mathematical language. We teach children to solve problems by applying their understanding with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions. We intend to deliver a challenging and enjoyable curriculum that develops independent learners who are not afraid to take risks.

Implementation

Mathematics within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is developed through purposeful, play based experiences and is taught and reinforced throughout the indoor and outdoor provision.

From Reception, we follow a ‘mastery in maths’ approach using the White Rose Scheme.  Whenever possible, we introduce learning in a real-life context so that the children see maths as an instrument for life. A mastery approach, enables all pupils to access the same curriculum, scaffold, stretch and challenge as appropriate. Maths teaching develops understanding through the use of concrete resources, pictorial representations, abstract representations, reasoning and problem solving.   Daily maths lessons comprise of:

1. Flashback starter to recap prior learning.
2. Main teacher input in small steps so all pupils are able to master the skill being taught.  This also includes talk tasks and use of sentence stems to develop oracy.
3. Independent learning comprises of varied fluency, reasoning and challenge activities.

Teachers also plan in opportunities to apply mathematical skills across the curriculum, for example in science, geography and design technology.

Impact

We measure the impact of our approach throughout lessons using assessment for learning, in end of unit and end of term assessments, lesson observations and learning walks.  Pupil voice questionnaires reflect pupils’ positive views of Maths.