Intention

Across the school, we encourage children to have a positive attitude towards their maths learning and teachers reinforce the expectation that children should be the best that they can be. We aim for our pupils to develop their automatic recall of facts and for them to be confident to take risks, and challenge themselves showing resilience when they find something difficult. Children are given opportunities to build a deep conceptual understanding of maths and its interrelated content so that they can apply their learning in different situations. Pupils are expected to use appropriate mathematical vocabulary, which is taught explicitly, to explain their choice of methods and develop their reasoning skills.

Implementation

To deliver our maths lesson, we follow the White Rose Maths Scheme of Learning within daily maths lessons. White Rose Maths is a blocked scheme, which allows for depth and breadth of learning within each strand of maths. The small steps within the scheme allow for a solid foundation of deep mathematical understanding.

Children engage with a wide range of concrete manipulatives, pictorial representations and abstract methods throughout their learning. Concrete and pictorial references scaffold and strengthen understanding and are used as a teaching and learning tool from Foundation to Year 6. 

Each day children have the opportunity to develop their fluency skills, through 5 a day. These are 5 arithmetic questions that children should be able to complete within 5 minutes. They cover a wide range of fluency skills and include regular repetition in order to allow children to revisit these skills regularly.

Within the maths lessons, children are given real life problems in order to get them thinking, prompt discussion and develop reasoning skills. They are then given appropriate learning for their ability, with children in Phase 3 encouraged to be responsible for their own learning, through choosing their level of difficulty. Additional challenge is provided through teacher’s assessment of the understanding.

Regular and ongoing formative assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child.

To ensure all children make progress from their differing starting points, the maths curriculum is adapted to scaffold learning for SEN pupils, through support and adapted learning, and additional challenge is offered to extend higher attaining pupils in addition to first quality teaching. Provision will be made for children who are not working at age related expectations through Provision Maps, Support Plans and interventions.

Impact

At Abbot’s Hall, pupils are confident and enthusiastic to talk about their maths. The impact of accurate use of mathematical vocabulary is evident during pupil/class discussions. Children’s fluency in number is evident in our record of high success in arithmetic.

Most of the pupils’ learning is live marked enabling instant feedback and opportunities for  support or challenge as appropriate. Misconceptions are addressed as they arise and teachers record interventions or support into books as and when needed.

Children complete a termly NFER assessment which assesses their arithmetical fluency and their mathematical reasoning. The results are then used to inform planning and intervention groups.