Maths

Maths

Intent

Mathematics is very important in everyday life and, with this is mind, the purpose of Mathematics at Willington Primary School is to develop an ability to solve problems, to reason, to think and work systematically, logically and accurately. When teaching mathematics at Willington Primary School, we intend to provide a Maths curriculum which caters for the needs of all individuals and promotes the necessary skills and knowledge for life-long learning. Whilst the programmes of study are organised into different topics, the children are encouraged to make links between these in order to understand how the subject is interrelated. All children are challenged and encouraged to do their best and succeed in Maths using fluency, reasoning and increasingly challenging problems and puzzles. New mathematical concepts are introduced using a ‘Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract’ approach. This enables all children to experience hands-on learning when discovering new mathematical topics, therefore allowing them to have clear models and images to aid their understanding. Arithmetic and basic mathematical skills are practised daily to ensure key mathematical concepts are embedded and children can recall this information to see the links between topics in Maths. Progress of the pupils is always based on the security of their understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage of their learning. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly are challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material, consolidate their understanding including through additional practice. 

White Rose Maths

At Willington Primary School, we follow the White Rose Maths sequence of learning as a basis for the Maths that the children learn throughout school from Reception through to Year 6. This provides a well sequenced and structured progression of mathematical skills which are directly linked to the EYFS and the National Curriculum. By using this sequence, the children are exposed to regular fluency, reasoning and problem solving tasks and link these to previous learning. At Willington Primary School, we follow a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach to teaching Maths which also follows the White Rose calculation methods.

Mastery

Throughout the school, a mastery approach to learning is carried out where the children sit in mixed ability places to encourage rich mathematical talk throughout their lessons. The mastery approach also encourages the children to learn through variation, enabling them to develop a rich and deep understanding of different mathematical concepts before moving onto a new idea.

The Structure of Lessons

In EYFS, Mathematics is taught as part of both teacher-led and continuous provision activities and are changed regularly based on the seven areas of learning on the EYFS curriculum. Children throughout Years 1-6 are taught Maths for 60 minutes each day, with an extra 15 minutes of arithmetic taught discretely in key Stage 2. Children have learning objectives and success criteria for each lesson which they self-assess against, with teachers providing feedback directly against these criteria either as verbal comments or written marking with regular next-steps comments. Children are given time to respond to this marking and recap over learning from previous lessons to consolidate their mathematical knowledge.