Mathematics

Maths Curriculum Statement

Intent

At Chaddleworth St Andrew’s and Shefford Federated Schools our curriculum ensures children apply mastery skills. This teaching for depth approach to mathematics, enables all children to master the mathematics curriculum and draws inspiration from a range of sources. Maths is a rich and interconnected subject and our aim is to support children to move fluently between different concepts and different representations of mathematical ideas, through both procedural and conceptual variation and clear modelling. The programmes of study domains, whilst being discrete due to necessity, are carefully designed to enable children to make rich connections across mathematical ideas and to develop fluency, reasoning and their confidence to solve increasingly sophisticated problems.

At Chaddleworth and Shefford schools we aim to:

  • develop every individual's potential in mathematics by becoming independent, confident and logical thinkers
  • encourage a positive attitude to maths
  • enable pupils to use mathematics as a tool for life and so foster an awareness of the uses of maths in everyday life
  • promote an awareness of the uses of mathematics beyond the classroom with the ability to apply skills in a changing world
  • equip the pupils with numerical skills and mathematical understanding through enquiry and investigation
  • use ICT to consolidate, extend and develop thinking and understanding

Underpinning our pedagogy, is the belief that all children can learn mathematics and that high quality mathematics education provides a foundation for understanding the wider world and a tool for life.

 

Implementation
Teaching Time

To provide adequate time for developing mathematical skills each class teacher will provide a daily mathematics lesson.  This may vary in length but will usually last for about 50 to 60 minutes.  Mental arithmetic and fluency sessions are also timetabled so that pupils are supported in remembering concepts and methods. Links, where possible, will also be made to mathematics within other subjects so pupils can develop and apply their mathematical skills.

 

Planning:

Lessons are planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before. Teachers use the objectives taken from the National Curriculum statutory guidelines and follow the White Rose Maths Hub materials, Termly Overview and Schemes of work to support their planning. Spine materials from the NCETM are used to ensure secure subject knowledge for professionals and small step progression for pupils. Planning for conceptual and procedural variation ensures lessons are challenging and children are motivated to achieve.

  Progression maps are structured using the topic headings as they appear in the National Curriculum:

  • Number and Place Value
  • Addition and Subtraction
  • Multiplication and Division · Fractions (including decimals and percentages)
  • Ratio and Proportion · Measurement
  • Geometry - properties of shapes · Geometry - position and direction
  • Statistics
  • Algebra

See separate document for progression across Year groups.

Our pupils are encouraged to physically represent mathematical concepts. Objects and pictures are used to demonstrate and visualise abstract ideas, alongside numbers and symbols.

The CPA approach underpins the Calculation policy so that pupils have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing. They then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can then be used to reason and solve problems. Finally, with the foundations firmly laid, children can move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.

 

Mathematics across the curriculum

Mathematics contributes to many subjects within the primary curriculum and opportunities will be sought to draw mathematical experience out of a wide range of activities. This will allow children to begin to use and apply mathematics in real contexts. These opportunities will be identified in all appropriate schemes of work but other opportunities will be taken as and when they occur.

 

Resources

See Calculation policy.

Every classroom must use a Maths working wall to support concepts and strategies used in a unit of work. There are a wide range of practical resources to be used in all Year groups. All class rooms must have 100 square, place value grid, multiplication square, number lines, arrow cards, dienes set,counters, tens frames, numicon set, appropriate measurement apparatus and key vocabulary display. Mathematical language and sentence stems are used to support the pupils in securing and remembering concepts.

 

Information and Communication Technology

ICT will be used in various ways to support teaching and motivate children’s learning for example the App ‘Times Tables Rockstars.’

 

Assessment

Formative assessment and summative assessment:

  • Formative (Assessment FOR learning - AfL): ongoing assessment of how children are learning, undertaken by the teacher during the course of the learning process.
  • Summative ( Assessment OF learning): This is the assessment of learning that takes place after the learning process, in order to measure how effective the learning has been.
     

These assessments will be used to inform teaching in a continuous cycle of planning, teaching and assessing.

Ongoing assessments, AFL and mini assessments, will be an informal part of every lesson to check pupils’ understanding and give information, which will help the teacher to adjust day-to-day lesson plans.

 At data entry points throughout the year children’s work will be assessed and a judgement of their progress and attainment will be made in line with ARE. The outcomes will be recorded on a school mark sheet, discussed within Pupil Progress Meetings and analysed for areas of development. Where possible these judgements will be moderated with colleagues and/or the MaCo.

 

Long-term assessments will take place towards the end of the school year to assess and review pupils’ progress and attainment. These will be made through National Curriculum mathematics tests for pupils in Year 2 and 6 and supplemented by an end of year assessment test in Years 1, 3, 4 and 5. Year 4 will also have the Multiplication check in the summer term. Teachers will refer to end of year objectives to help inform them of a Teacher Assessment level, using the tests and class work to guide them. Where possible these judgements will be moderated within the school. Accurate information will then be reported to parents and the child’s next teacher and the LA. Analysis of progress will be regularly carried out by the MaCo throughout the year. Where children appear to be making little progress the MaCo will discuss interventions to support the teacher that will help the children to accelerate their learning.

 

Impact

At Chaddleworth St Andrew’s and Shefford Schools we expect that by the end of Year 6 pupils will:

  • become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics
  • reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and drawing conclusions and generalisations
  • solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication.

 

Outcomes:

At the end of each year we expect the children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). Children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention.

 

Pupil voice:

Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their maths lessons and speak about how they love learning about maths. They can articulate the context in which maths is being taught using accurate vocabulary.

 

Management of Maths

In order to achieve this the Mathematics co-ordinator and the Senior Leadership Team take responsibility for the monitoring of the Mathematics curriculum and the standards achieved by the children. The Mathematics co-ordinator will monitor for appropriate pitch and progression every term. This monitoring takes the form of one or more of the following:

  1. lesson observations and feedback
  2. learning walks and pupil voice conversations
  3. planning scrutiny followed by support where necessary
  4. book looks on a frequent basis
  5. termly data analysis