Maths

Subject Definition

Maths, is the study of numbers and how they are related to each other and to the real world. Everyone is a mathematician. Mathematicians develop key skills every day and work with numbers, calculations, shapes and equations.

They may develop skills when they least expect it such as —to tell the time, to play games, to cook and to build things!

Useful Websites

For those that want to really stretch their brain noodles and see the kind of things you will learn at secondary school:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/maths/

Maths at Home - Resources for Parents

Helping your child at home

Number Ninja's Maths Club

"3 Is" in Maths at St Andrew's

Maths 3Is On A Page

Intent

At St Andrew’s we understand that maths is a journey and long-term goal, achieved through exploration, clarification, practice and application over time. At each stage of learning, children should be able to demonstrate a deep, conceptual understanding of the topic and be able to build on this over time.

There are 3 levels of learning:

Shallow learning: surface, temporary, often lost
Deep learning: it sticks, can be recalled and used
Deepest learning: can be transferred and applied in different contexts

The deep and deepest levels are what we are aiming for by teaching maths using the Mastery approach.

Children at St Andrew’s are passionate about maths. At our school maths is a subject of joy and determination.

We can learn with independence and with support. We can all succeed and learn skills that will continue to develop.

What do our children think?

Dylan "Our lessons are fun and we work with other people, ourselves and our teacher"

Tasbeeh "Maths is so important for our future. If we don't know maths we will struggle with lifes jobs. Even easy jobs like buying the food"

Ahmed “We need to tell the time or we might miss the flight”

Kristy "In maths we develop our fluency and then practice when we reason and problem solve"

Aryas “I want to be a chef and I need to accurately weigh out my ingredients because I want my food to taste good"

Angus "Maths is about using numbers. There is no bigger number because you can just add 1 more although a Google Plex is very large"

Implementation

Teachers use the resources from White Rose Hub, NCETM and Nrich as a starting point and we confidently (support and guidance is given where needed) use these resources as tools. Our teachers have long term overviews that meet the needs of our St Andrew’s learners.

Our overviews are designed to support a mastery approach to teaching and learning and fully cover the aims and objectives of the new National Curriculum. At St Andrew’s we prioritize number. This is because research shows that children who have an excellent grasp of number make better mathematicians.

A large proportion of time is spent building on competency. Our planning supports the ideal of depth before breadth. Our school sees the importance of building reasoning and problem solving into the curriculum for the children to use and apply their developing skills. Our class teachers meet the needs of the learners and are flexible with timings to ensure the appropriate amount to time is spent mastering key topics as it is essential that our children’s confidence is secure to help secure understanding.

Multiple representations for all! Concrete, pictorial, abstract

Objects, pictures, words, numbers and symbols are everywhere. The mastery approach incorporates all of these to help children explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enrich their learning experience and deepen understanding. Together, these elements help cement knowledge so pupils truly understand what they’ve learnt.

All pupils, when introduced to a key new concept, will have the opportunity to build competency in this topic by taking this approach. Pupils are encouraged to physically represent mathematical concepts. Objects and pictures are used to demonstrate and visualise abstract ideas, alongside numbers and symbols.

Concrete – children have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing.

Pictorial – children then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can then be used to reason and solve problems.

Abstract – With the foundations firmly laid, children can move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.

As the curriculum is ever changing we ensure regular staff meetings are used to keep staff up to date with the curriculum.

Our maths curriculum is a tool to inspire our children to be confident and passionate when using maths in the everyday world.

Our children are supported and challenged by teachers that have a passion for progress. The metal system ensures the children move their learning on during the session, the week and the term. We all love a challenge and the CPA approach ensures all learners understand the basic 4 operations before moving onto reasoning and problem solving.

What do our children think?

Eleanor “we can’t always count in our head and we use the equipment to help us”.

Maja “I use the equipment to understand my maths”

Dillion “we are encouraged to use different methods to check our answers”

Impact

The impact of our curriculum will show in the children’s attitude to learn alongside their progress.

Our long term plans have been designed carefully to ensure that sufficient time is given for teachers to explore different concepts.

Our sessions are broken down into small steps where needed and the flexibility of sessions / units is at the core.

We produce a curriculum that meets the needs of our learners and our priority is to challenge and support our children so our learners can achieve the most they possibly can. Teachers have shown they can mark alongside the children to provide verbal feedback that is accurate, up to date and effective to move learning on (whether challenge or support).

As a result of our curriculum we expect the children to show confidence with quick recall of facts and procedures, the flexibility and fluidity to move between different contexts and representations of mathematics and the ability to recognise relationships and make connections in mathematics.

A mathematical concept or skill has been mastered when a child can show it in multiple ways, using the mathematical language to explain their ideas, and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations.

At our school we make impact!

We are passionate about progress and want the very best for our amazing learners.