“Maths is the music of reason”- James Joseph Sylvester
Our Intent
Through our teaching of mathematics here at St Teresa’s, we intend to provide our children the opportunity to develop their mathematical fluency, while also providing the opportunity to develop critical and analytical thinkers within our school. We intend for our pupils to become better, more able problem solvers, who can remain resilient when challenged and who can think systematically and efficiently, across a wide variety of contexts across the curriculum, by the time they complete their primary education.
Our mathematical teaching and learning is based on a ‘mastery of maths‘ approach; mastering maths means pupils develop a deeper and longer-term understanding of the subject. Teaching for mastery enables a more developed understanding to take place, that is more secure and can be readily applied and adapted at a later stage, allowing pupils to move on to more advanced material.
We aim to ensure that all pupils can: –
– become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately
– reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
– can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevere in seeking solutions.
Our approach
In order to enable our children to meet these aims, the teaching and learning of mathematics within our school is supported by a DfE, NCETM and OFSTED approved, well-thought out scheme of work produced by White Rose Maths. The scheme is designed to explore mathematical teaching and learning at a slower pace, allowing for greater exploration, discussion, understanding and therefore progress to be achieved. White Rose aims to develop children’s mathematical understanding using a CPA approach (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract), allowing children to make use of concrete apparatus to explore their learning, demonstrate what they understand pictorially and relate their learning to more difficult, abstract concepts.
Early Years Curriculum overview
White Rose Maths Curriculum Overview Y1-Y6
Although lessons within the scheme are carefully and thoughtfully designed, as teachers we aim to ensure that we are delivering an inclusive provision for all of our pupils. This is achieved by incorporating further challenge and extension tasks (Let’s Get Deep!) for increased variation and a deeper understanding, while those pupils who need greater support can be exposed to PiXL targeted support interventions, pre-teaching and access videos of the learning before entering into the lesson, while being supported and scaffolded in class.
At St Teresa’s we believe in working with parents in order to support pupils in their learning of mathematics and therefore we run Maths focused workshops throughout the year as a way of bridging the gap between home and school, so that we support our parents in supporting our pupils. Home learning is a blended approach of paper based and online learning activities using the tool My Maths.
For children in Year 2 to Year 6, we subscribe to an online multiplication programme called ‘Times Tables Rock Stars‘ that promotes a healthy level of competition amongst our pupils in learning their multiplication facts and as a way of ensuring they develop accurate rapid mental recall of their multiplication facts while having fun doing so. Additionally, we place a great emphasis on knowing and understanding multiplication facts, because they unlock the understanding of and ability to access many other key areas of mathematical learning such as division, fractions and area, to name but a few.
Calculation Policy – Multiplication and Division (Year 1-6)