Stonham AspalOur Maths Curriculum
Intent
At Stonham Aspal CEVA Primary School, our overall aim is to equip all of our pupils with the life skills they need to be able to flourish in the real world and promote a love of maths. We aim to ensure that, regardless of background and ability, every pupil has a rich and meaningful mathematics education. Both staff and pupils understand the importance of automaticity and fluency within maths and this is taught through real life contexts to enable pupils to apply their understanding, reason about maths, problem solve and make connections across the subject and the wider curriculum. We believe in a language rich environment and our pupils will leave us with the confidence to talk maths, do maths and apply maths to their everyday lives.
Implementation
Our Curriculum:
Our maths curriculum is based on White Rose which is a whole-class mastery programme designed to spark curiosity and excitement and help children develop confidence in maths. As a school, in EYFS and KS1 we are participating in the National NCETM Mastering Number programme to develop good number sense right from the beginning. It is aimed at strengthening the understanding of number, and fluency with number facts during a daily additional maths session. In KS2 we are completing the NCETM ‘Mastery Readiness’ program as well as the ‘Maths Mastery’ program to develop mastery in school so our staff are confident and feel empowered to deliver the maths curriculum, and have the resources and support they need to achieve this. Teaching sequences are based on small steps to ensure a good level of coherence, understanding, application of understanding and transference of skills to a range of mathematic problems and contexts. White Rose maps out a long term plan based on 12 weeks in a term. At Stonham Aspal CEVA Primary School, we tailor this scheme to suit our pupil’s needs by adding in extra units where needed such as problem solving week, extra units for consolidation or revisiting skills taught earlier on in the term or spending longer on a unit when needed.
Maths lessons:
Every one of our maths lessons is based on the principals that all children can achieve, which is our belief at Stonham Aspal CEVA Primary School. In EYFS and KS1 children will learn number, geometry, measurement and statistics during their time in KS1. The objectives for each maths area are based on the planning for White Rose Maths and the skills they learn and practise aim to enable children to develop calculation and reasoning skills and knowledge with understanding and independence. The knowledge and skills are taught both discretely in mental maths, whole class teaching, independent activities and the plenary to learn and practise. They will work independently, or in pairs or groups during maths lessons with the teacher or TA to support and develop their skills. The units are taught using the CPA (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract) approach to enable children to use manipulatives to introduce, support or enhance their learning and understanding. In each class, manipulatives are available in each lesson for children to use independently or with guidance. As they become more fluent and confident they will learn how to check their work is accurate. When relevant they will use maths for different purposes in topic lessons which enables them to use, apply and extend the skills and knowledge they have learnt across the curriculum eg graphs or sorting diagrams in Science or measuring in DT.
Children are taught in mixed ability groups, with all children accessing the same learning and all pupils having full access to mathematical manipulatives. This allows all children to be exposed to the same content and be offered the same opportunities, rather than placing a cap on children’s learning. Pupils are then given tasks to enrich and stretch this learning in the form of challenges to further challenge the greater depth pupils, and those who may need extra support are supported through scaffolding such as using mathematical manipulatives or by requiring teacher/TA support. No pupils will be given different objectives unless they have an EHCP/SEND.
How a maths lesson is organised:
- - Each lesson begins with a revisit of previous learning in the form of a flashback 4 (something from last year, last month, last week and the last lesson). This enables pupils to exercise their working memory and to better retain facts taught previously.
- - A mental warm up is then completed that either links to work done in the last lesson, or the current lesson. The new lesson content is then introduced in the form of small steps and a ping pong style session. There are opportunities for guided practice and independent practice. Concrete materials are always on hand if pupils need them. They make that choice themselves to enable them to own their own learning. Each slide takes the pupils through learning rapidly but the small steps mean that pupils are all brought along together as a whole.
- - The independent tasks are then explained and the pupils complete their work at the level that suits them, starting on different questions depending on ability/confidence. The tasks are high ceiling low entry, so that everyone can access the first questions and then go as far through them as they can, completing the stretch and challenge activities if possible.
Teachers actively mark through the lesson to provide immediate feedback and intervention where needed. TA’s do not always sit with a group as we aim to ensure that all pupils develop independence. So once they have introduced and supported certain pupils, they will leave them for independent practice and revisit them to monitor. TA’s will also actively mark in class and provide immediate feedback to pupils and the teacher where needed.
We do not provide written feedback to pupils in books or expect this from staff and research shows that verbal feedback at the time of the misconception is more beneficial to move learning forward. Pupils are encouraged to self-mark where appropriate and are expected to correct their mistakes which is shown in red pen.
Assessment:
- - Teachers and TA’s actively assess daily and provide immediate feedback to move learning forwards.
- - End of unit assessments are carried out from the White Rose scheme and supplemented with other activities where needed.
- - At the end of each term a mathematics test is completed, which also feeds into our robust assessment process to inform/support our teacher assessment judgements.
- - Our assessment system is updated after each unit and on a termly basis to keep track of pupil attainment.
- - Maths leads takes part in regular maths pupil voice meetings and book looks.
- - Termly pupil progress meeting are held to discuss pupils and lesson observations are conducted and support put in place if needed.
Extra opportunities:
- - Some pupils may receive extra support to try to catch up/fill gaps from previously missed learning due to COVID or SEND.
- - Weekly homework is sent home with pupils which supports the learning that week and weekly times tables/mental maths tests take place regularly.
- - Regular feedback on maths is given to parents/carers during our termly parents evenings and their termly school reports.
Impact
The impact of our curriculum is that children:
- Develop a love of maths
- Become fluent, competent and efficient mathematicians.
-Develop the ability to reason and problem solve, often using more than one approach
- Develop skills to use maths in real life • Gain knowledge and quick retrieval of basic number facts
- Are able to learn from mistakes and are resilient
- Develop a responsibility for making choices and decisions
- Make good or better progress
-Results at Stonham Aspal CEVA Primary School in Year 6 are higher than the national average.
Mastering number overview EYFS