Maths
How Maths is taught at Arnot St Mary
The National Curriculum for Maths aims to ensure that all children:
• Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics
• Are able to reason mathematically
• Can solve problems by applying their Mathematics
At Arnot St Mary, these skills are embedded within Maths lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are also able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. We are committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject, as well as an appreciation of the beauty and power of Mathematics. At Arnot St. Mary, our core values underpin our vision and ensure we keep it REAL in maths. In our lessons, we will encourage resilience. We’re not afraid of a challenge, we learn from our mistakes and have another go. We are all treated fairly in our maths lessons and have the same opportunities to succeed. We encourage our children to have ambitions for the future and know we can achieve great things in our maths learning. And finally, in all of our maths lessons we care for one another through trust and respect and our teachers and children will promote a love of maths.
The content and principles underpinning the 2014 Mathematics curriculum at Arnot St Mary reflect those of a mastery approach. This means that we believe all our children can become confident, fluent mathematicians, who approach their learning with an attitude which says, ‘I can do maths’.
As part of our school’s mastery approach, children are encouraged to learn through the use of practical equipment and images. This helps them to develop their mathematical thinking. Children also are given opportunities to discuss mathematical problems with a partner and as a class. This helps them to develop their collaborative working skills and critical thinking. Mathematical challenges are integrated throughout units of work, in order to help children build their determination and resilience when faced with new concepts.
These principles and features characterise this approach and convey how our curriculum is implemented:
• Teachers reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Mathematics.
• The large majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace; significant time is spent developing deep knowledge of the key ideas that are needed to underpin future learning. This ensures that all can master concepts before moving to the next part of the curriculum sequence.
• Lesson design identifies the new mathematics that is to be taught, the key points, the difficult points and a carefully sequenced journey through the learning.
• Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts.
• Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess children regularly to identify those requiring intervention, so that all children keep up.
• Children’s explanations and their proficiency in articulating mathematical reasoning, with the precise use of mathematical vocabulary.
To ensure whole consistency and progression, the school uses Lancashire’s Red Rose scheme in Years 1 – 4 and in Years 5 - 6, the nationally recognised White Rose Maths scheme. Both schemes are a cumulative curriculum, so that once a topic is covered, it is met many times again in other contexts. For example, place value is revisited in addition and subtraction and multiplication and division. The curriculum recognises the importance of children’s conceptual understanding of number. It is therefore designed to ensure that time is invested in reinforcing this to build competency.
Enrichment in Maths
At Arnot St Mary, we want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. Children are encouraged to participate in competitions internally and externally and against themselves. Our children enjoy using competitive platforms such as Times Table Rockstars to compete against themselves and their peers to improve their knowledge and recall of times tables. Additionally, some of our older children are given the opportunity to compete against other primary schools in competitions organised by local high schools tackling complex mathematical puzzles.
We also offer lots of maths based clubs that include Kahoot quizzes and Freckle. At Arnot St Mary, we also like to enrich our love for maths in other subjects including DT, Science and Art.
