Mathematics

Intent

At Courtney, we recognise maths as a skill that we use on a daily basis and is an essential part of everyday life. Therefore, mathematics forms an important part of our broad and balanced curriculum where we endeavour to ensure that children develop an enjoyment and enthusiasm for maths that will stay with them throughout their lives and empower them in future life. In mathematics, we aim is to teach a rich, balanced and progressive curriculum using maths to support fluency, problem solving and develop conceptual understanding in each area. Teaching curriculum content in blocks allows children to explore vocabulary, skills and knowledge in depth and gain a secure understanding of particular subject matter. Our curriculum allows children to better make sense of the world around them by making connections between mathematics and everyday life.  As a school, we recognise that the key to unlocking the potential in our children is through the development of basic mathematical skills and the understanding of mathematical concepts. We therefore place great emphasis on the use of concrete resources and pictorial representations at all ages, to enable children to fully understand the concepts and principals, when presented with abstract calculations and questions.

Implementation

At Courtney, our Maths curriculum provides breadth and balance, is relevant and engaging and is differentiated to match the needs and abilities of all our children to ensure that all pupils are able to excel. Our curriculum is frequently reviewed to ensure that is it current and effective and teachers are supported and aided in their teaching of mathematics through appropriate high quality CPD ensuring confidence in the skills and knowledge that they are required to teach. We continually strive to build upon the excellent understanding of the expectations of the curriculum that our staff have. Good practice is always shared between staff and all CPD is used to inform teaching and learning across school. Resources and equipment are audited regularly so that children have materials of high quality and accuracy to support their learning. Children are familiar with these resources and can access them independently where needed.

From Reception to Year 6, we adhere to our calculation policy which outlines the progression of strategies and methods to be taught and we have an accompanying vocabulary progression document which we also follow. We have created our scheme of learning in line with White Rose small steps, but have altered the order to suit and benefit the needs of our children so that connections between units of learning are easier to recognise. We recognise the needs and abilities of all pupils therefore teach out input in a ‘my turn’, ‘your turn’ and ‘our turn’ style to support the demonstration and practising of each new skill.

Within daily teaching, children will be reminded of previous/current learning that links to that lessons, which will constantly be referred to within the lesson. Within each lesson the children will be provided with visuals of the learning aim in real life as well as a misconception from the previous learning to ensure knowledge and understanding is frequently revisited.

Daily assessment is incorporated throughout the lesson through live and verbal feedback and teachers are encouraged to created mid-lessons plenaries to support misconceptions. At Courtney, our lesson structure highly supports children to consistently try the learning before doing it independently enabling the teacher to create fluidity within small working groups as they can continually assessment the learning within the teaching.

At Courtney, we recognise the importance of retention and frequent practise to ensure skills are staying active for the children. In order the achieve this, every class has a 15-minute maths skills lesson scheduled into their day. KS1 focus on ‘Mastery Number’ which aims to strengthen to understanding of number and fluency with number facts. KS2 will complete White Rose’s ‘flashback 4’ which aim to embed previous taught skills.

Times tables play an important part in our maths learning, with children developing their fluency in rapid recall of tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4. While the rapid recall of times tables is being developed, children are also learning how to apply and manipulate their understanding of this to reason and solve problems.

Impact

The impact of our mathematics curriculum is that children understand the relevance and importance of what they are learning in relation to real world concepts. Children know that maths is a vital life skill that they will rely on in many areas of their daily life. Children have a positive view of maths due to learning in an environment where maths is promoted as being an exciting and enjoyable subject in which they can investigate and ask questions; they know that it is reasonable to make mistakes because this can strengthen their learning through the journey to finding an answer. Children are confident to ‘have a go’ and choose the equipment they need to help them to learn along with the strategies they think are best suited to each problem. Our children have a good understanding of their strengths and targets for development in maths and what they need to do to improve. Our maths books evidence work of a high standard of which children clearly take pride; the components of the teaching sequences demonstrate good coverage of fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Our feedback and interventions support children to strive to be the best mathematicians they can be, ensuring a high proportion of children are on track or above. Our school standards are high, we moderate our books both internally and externally and children are achieving well.