Maths

Mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas

Intent

At St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School, our intent is for all children to be confident and enthusiastic learners in Mathematics. We provide a clear, progressive curriculum to stimulate and challenge our pupils, encouraging children to take risks, learn from misconceptions, apply their learning in a variety of ways and to have a sense of curiosity and enjoyment for the subject.

The National Curriculum outlines that all children should:

* Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasing 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 persevering in seeking solutions.

We provide the Mathematical skills needed for life and aim that all children can achieve a deep understanding. We plan using the White Rose resources to carefully craft lesson so that the children are able to build on their prior leaning, know more and remember more. They are given the opportunity to develop resilience and self-confidence when applying their knowledge by answering questions like ‘Why?’ ‘How?’ and ‘Explain…’

Implementation

The National Curriculum is taught using a ‘Mastery’ style approach following the White Rose small steps. Our school has a consistent approach to calculation methods that is based on a progression from using concrete manipulatives (such as counters, cubes or place value counters) to pictorial representations and finally to abstract methods. In order for children to know more they must remember more so it is important for children to not only build on their previous learning but to embed facts and key learning in their long-term memory.

Opportunities to recap on prior learning happen daily. In addition, in Key Stage One we also use Number Sense to build the automatic recall of number facts and this continues into KS2 to build on those. New concepts and procedures are modelled and the most efficient methods are used and encouraged. Lessons are adapted to suit the abilities of all learners including those on the SEND register. The use of precise mathematical vocabulary is important and we often use stem sentences.

We encourage the use of Times Tables Rock Stars and Numbots at home to support the fundamental times table recall. MyMaths is also used to set homework weekly.

Impact

Teachers assess the children during lessons and are able to provide them with the pre-teaching/post-teaching activities where necessary to enable them to keep up with the learning.

Teachers also use the end of unit mini assessments and in the summer term they complete the NFER test in most year groups.

The children will demonstrate an increase in their effective use of vocabulary and their automatic recall of number facts.

Mathematical concepts and procedures are mastered and children can use and apply and explain their thinking independently.

Enrichment

At St. Thomas of Canterbury, we provide other opportunities for the children to extend their knowledge and understanding of Maths beyond the classroom such as our ‘Maths Day’ full of reasoning and problem solving tasks.

The children in KS2 also have opportunities to run mini-enterprise stalls for example during Lent when we fund raise with cake sales and other charity events held at the local Church. Lunchtime sessions for Maths online games also take place weekly.