Maths

Rational / Vision

Founded in hope St. Mary’s CE (VA) Primary School is a place where all can find their voice, grow in wisdom and live well in community and service.

 

Living in Community and Service:

Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. Our high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject which opens doors and brings enrichment to the community.

Finding our Voice:

Maths plays a fundamental role in supporting children to find their voice. Through oracy, children are encouraged to reason and problem solve. They are given opportunities to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language within groups and 1:1 conversation.

Growing in Wisdom:

Children are able to deepen their mathematical understanding through a mastery approach whereby they learn to extend their reasoning and develop a deep and lasting understanding of mathematics.

 Intent –

At St Mary’s, we use the Red Rose Mathematics scheme of work to develop our mastery approach to Mathematics. By using this scheme of work, children continue to build upon previous knowledge at a deeper level of understanding and reasoning. Consistent recaps are embedded within the curriculum which enable children to secure and strengthen their learning and apply these to other concepts. Through discussions, children find links between mathematical learning which are modelled by the class teacher. Children’s learning and progression is carefully considered in advance of the lesson and opportunities to enhance their understanding is also carefully planned. Children are encouraged to challenge themselves within the lessons through oral and written responses; this is designed to allow children to delve deeper into a concept.

 Provision / Implementation –

Mathematical learning begins at birth, children intently explore the world around them in spontaneous play. Examples of this include: stacking, lining objects and responding to music.

Within our early year’s unit, we value play and exploration, we carefully plan our provision to ensure that children have the opportunities to explore mathematical concepts and reasoning at their developmental level. In addition to this, children are taught counting rhymes and songs as well as the numerical value of numbers in nursery. As children progress into upper foundation stage, they are taught discrete math lessons, the provision is then carefully planned and enhanced to allow for children to practise taught skills and concepts in a range of ways. A high emphasis of automatic recall and verbal explanations is place on mathematical learning in the early years, this is done through allowing oracy opportunities and high-quality questioning.

Red Rose Mathematics is our chosen strategy at St. Mary’s for KS1 and KS2 to develop children’s ability to retain and recap on knowledge. It is also a mastery approach to Mathematics which ensures children sustain a deeper and more thorough understanding of the Maths curriculum by applying their fluency and knowledge in different contexts.  In the classroom, lessons consist of a recap as the lesson starter, this can be from content taught recently as well as earlier in the year to allow opportunities to refine their skills and consolidate learning. This feature ensures lesson content is recapped and revisited to embed the knowledge deeper and for longer. Within the lessons, teaching is delivered and manipulatives are often incorporated into the sessions to allow children to develop their visual understanding of the concept as well as then building in opportunities to transfer these skills into formal methods. Children work together in a ‘guided practice’ where children will work alongside their peers and with the class teacher to demonstrate their understanding and allow any same day interventions to be formed. Children will then work independently to further demonstrate their understanding and apply the knowledge that has been taught. Oracy remains at the forefront of Maths lessons and children are encouraged to talk through their opinions, answers and develop the ability to prove, explain or justify their answers. This learning is developed through the mastery approach where children will learn strategies to explain their reasoning.

Impact – As a result of using Red Rose Mathematics, children sustain a deeper and more detailed understanding of the Maths curriculum. Our expectation is that all pupils are literate in Mathematics and as a minimum, pupils are able to become fluent in their understanding and demonstrate their understanding. Children apply their learning over-time and, as a result, learning is embedded and fluency and reasoning is strengthened. Children will also understand how prior learning effects future learning and by using Red Rose Mathematics children will learn to remember and use existing knowledge and build upon it. Additionally, children’s vocabulary will be enhanced and mathematical terminology will be modelled which will then be used in all lessons for children to use.