Maths

At Rushey Green, we are passionate about teaching Maths. We want our children to have a secure understanding of the National Curriculum, but more importantly we are committed to growing excellent, confident mathematicians, who love experiencing the beauty, power and magic of Maths as well as developing a sense of curiosity.

Mathematics is a creative and highly interconnected 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 aim is for children to be able to make clear connections and for them to understand that Maths is part of everyday life. We want children to be able to use their new learning in other areas of the curriculum and see how it can be transferred to real life contexts.

Through Maths lessons, we aim to develop children who aspire to be challenged and are independent learners who continually push themselves. We teach children to become resilient learners who are able to reflect on their learning, and gain a wide range of skills and strategies that they can apply to different and new problems. Mistakes and misconceptions are part of our daily practice as they are an essential part of learning in order to problem solve effectively and efficiently. We want all children to enjoy Maths and to experience success in the subject.

The National Curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

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 Rushey Green a Maths Mastery approach is used to consolidate the building blocks that children need to study Maths and to a high standard. We are part of the NCETM Maths hub Mastery programme.

It is achievable for all – we have high expectations and encourage a positive ‘can do’ mindset towards mathematics in all pupils, creating learning experiences which develop children’s resilience in the face of a challenge and carefully scaffolding learning so everyone can make progress.
The ability to reason about a concept and make connections – pupils are encouraged to make connections and spot patterns between different concepts (E.g. the link between ratio, division and fractions) and use precise mathematical language, which frees up working memory and deepens conceptual understanding.
Conceptual and procedural fluency – teachers move mathematics from one context to another (using objects, pictorial representations, equations and word problems). There are high expectations for pupils to learn times tables, key number facts (so they are automatic) and have a true sense of number.
Problem solving– this develops pupils’ understanding of why something works so that they truly have an appreciation of what they are doing rather than just learning to repeat routines without grasping what is happening.
Challenge through greater depth - rather than accelerated content, (moving onto next year’s concepts) teachers set tasks to deepen knowledge and improve reasoning skills within the objectives of their year group.

Maths is taught daily and the elements of: fluency, reasoning and problem solving are evident in lessons.

To ensure whole school consistency and progression, we follow The White Rose Maths scheme of learning. This develops a consistent approach, ensures learning is broken down into small, connected steps and builds on what children already know. Teaching is taught in blocks to enable the achievement of “Mastery” over time. The NCETM Primary Mastery materials and Power Maths resources are used to support teaching and learning across KS1 and KS2.

Teachers plan key questions to be used to help develop the children’s mathematical concepts. Sentence stems are used in lessons to help develop children’s mathematical language.

Resources

Each class is resourced with the appropriate manipulatives required. These are clearly labelled and accessible for the children and adults. Teachers are responsible for ensuring that these resources are kept in a good condition and children are encouraged to use these regularly. Resources include: Base 10, place value counters (dependent on year group), bead strings, double sided counters. Teachers may use number lines, hundred squares and other manipulatives where appropriate. Resources needed are clearly identified in the calculation policy.

Reasoning and Problem solving

Reasoning and problem solving are a part of each lesson sequence. Teachers plan and use reasoning questions throughout a lesson, giving the children opportunities to explore, think critically and discover - mathematical power.

Arithmetic and Fluency

Children take part in the following:

Daily ‘Flashback 4’ is taught across KS1 and KS2 to assess prior learning and build on knowledge.
Weekly arithmetic sessions in Y3 - 6 with a clear emphasis on fluency
Key stage 1 uses repetition songs and rhymes to rehearse key number facts.
Times table Rockstar is used in Year 3- 6 to develop and deepen knowledge of multiplication and division facts.

EYFS

Children in Nursery and Reception are taught maths through delivery of the mathematics area of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. At Rushey Green the teaching of maths in the EYFS involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measures.

Children will develop their understanding through planned, purposeful play, both indoors and outdoors and through a mix of adult-led and child initiated activities.

Children are given ample opportunity to develop their understanding of number, measurement, pattern, shape and space through varied activities that allow them to enjoy, explore, practise and talk confidently about mathematics.

Mastering Number is used in the Early Years. We believe that this approach to teaching maths helps our children to see connections between numbers and secures firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children. Numicon is also used to support teaching and is evident within the provision; it is a multi-sensory way of learning, which means our children learn by seeing and feeling.

Impact

Throughout each lesson formative assessment takes place and feedback is given (written or verbal) to the children through marking and next step tasks to ensure they have mastered the specific learning. Teacher’s then use this assessment to influence their planning and ensure they are providing a mathematics curriculum that will allow each child to progress.

The teaching of maths is also monitored on a termly basis through book scrutinies, learning walks and pupil voice. At specific points during the academic school year (see assessment cycle) children from Year 1 - 6 complete a summative assessment to help them to develop their testing approach and demonstrate their understanding of the topics covered. Key stage 1 and 2 use Pixl tests and previous SATs papers (Year 2 and 6.) The results from both the formative assessment and summative assessment are then used to determine children’s progress and attainment.

The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programme of study at broadly the same pace. However, decisions about when to progress should always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage.

Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.