Maths

“Every culture has contributed to maths just as is has contributed to literature. It’s a universal language; numbers belong to everyone” Daniel Tammet – Thinking in Numbers: How Maths Illuminates our Lives.

Intent

The national curriculum for maths aims to ensure that all children:

• 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 persevering in seeking solutions.

Implementation

At the Phoenix Federation, it is our belief that all pupils, regardless of ability, race or gender, should be encouraged and helped to realise their full potential in Mathematics.  We want the children to see Mathematics as being relevant to their world and applicable to everyday life as well as being something that they will need as they move on through their school life and ultimately to the world of employment. To that end, we deliver a high quality, inter-related and creative Mathematics experience, in order for children to develop and embrace their ability to think mathematically.

Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solutions 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. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the beauty of both the subject and the world, the ability to reason and problem solve and a lifelong enjoyment of and curiosity about the subject.

Impact

At the Phoenix Federation, Maths is taught daily to embed strategies and build on children’s prior knowledge to ensure that the children master concepts. Our academic, technical or vocational ambitions for all learners are highly ambitious. We aim to support children to learn together through collaboration and discussion and we use targeted support and scaffolding to make the learning as clear and accessible as possible. We actively avoid unnecessarily elaborate or differentiated approaches although some learners with high levels of special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) may need to work on a curriculum that whilst differentiated is still ambitious.

 

Teaching for Mastery 

We are working with the NCETM Maths networks to develop a teaching for mastery approach to mathematics.  All of our teachers take a Mastery approach to teaching and learning, and are committed to developing their subject knowledge and pedagogy around the subject.

“Mastering maths means pupils of all ages acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject. The phrase ‘teaching for mastery’ describes the elements of classroom practice and school organisation that combine to give pupils the best chances of mastering maths. Achieving mastery means acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that’s been taught to enable pupils to move on to more advanced material.”

White Rose 

At Grinling Gibbons our teacher plan with White Rose schemes of learning to ensure our children are engaging with lessons that are influenced, inspired and informed by the work of leading maths researchers and practitioners and that our curriculum is coherently sequenced. Our teachers refine, build on and augment these plans using their own subject knowledge, their knowledge of their pupils and other high quality planning resources including those produced by the NCETM, NRICH and YouCubed. 

Numberblocks

 Numberblocks episodes are produced in consulatation with NCETM Director for Primary Debbie Morgan. Along with the associated planning resources these episodes are an important part of how we teach early maths. In EYFS and KS1 we use Numberblocks to highlight and develop the key mathematical ideas that are embedded in the programmes. Our teachers use these episodes as a launchpad, confidently moving on from an episode and helping children to bring the numbers and ideas to life in the world around them.

Fluency

According to the National Curriculum (2013) children should ‘become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and recall and apply knowledge.’

In order to achieve this, we have a Whole School approach to the teaching and learning of Times Tables. This approach focusses on 36 key facts that are used to ensure children learn these important facts in a coherent way that builds on a deep and embedded understanding of the associated mathematical structures.  These sessions are taught discretely, at least 3 times a week and more frequently in Lower KS2 to ensure that our children are adequately prepared for the Multiplication Tables Check.

In Key Stage 1 the federation is participating in the NCETM Mastering Number project to ensure children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number.  These sessions are taught four times a week by members of staff who have received training through the NCETM.