Maths

School Vision

‘We seek to transform the lives of our children within a Christian environment, nurturing the wellbeing of each child, promoting the highest academic achievement and instilling a lifelong love of learning.’

I alone know the plans I have for you; plans for the future you hope for. Jeremiah 29:11

God’s plans for us are limitless. He knows us best and plans for us to reach our unique and individual potential, shaped in the palm of His hand. This potential may reveal itself when we least expect it, just like God’s love being revealed to us. We believe that we are shaping children, not just in the present, but also for the future – enabling them to be global citizens in God’s rapidly changing world, celebrating life in all its fullness.

Intent

When teaching mathematics at Christ Church, we intend to provide a curriculum which caters for the needs of all individuals and sets them up with the necessary skills and knowledge for them to achieve success in their future work place and economic well-being.

At Christ Church we believe maths is an important part of everyday life. The intention of our Maths curriculum is for pupils to :

• make sense of our world,
• tackle real life problems
• communicate information
• develop skills which are essential in most other areas of the curriculum.

We incorporate sustained levels of challenge through varied and high-quality activities with a focus on fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Pupils are required to explore maths in depth, using mathematical vocabulary to reason and explain their workings. A wide range of mathematical resources are used, and pupils are taught to show their workings in a concrete, pictorial and abstract form wherever suitable. They are taught to explain their choice of methods and develop their mathematical reasoning skills. We encourage resilience and acceptance that struggle is often a necessary step in learning.

All this is underpinned by:

• The teaching of Fluency - We intend for all pupils to 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.
• The teaching of Problem Solving: We intend for all pupils to 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.
• The teaching of Reasoning: We intend for all pupils to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
• A vocabulary rich environment: We intend to create a vocabulary rich environment, where talk for maths is a key learning tool for all pupils. Teaching and using key vocabulary is a driver for pupil understanding and develops the confidence of pupils to explain mathematically

Implementation

Teachers use the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning as the basis of their planning whilst using their professional judgement to adapt these to meet the needs of their class.

Mathematics is an interconnected subject in which pupils need to be able to move fluently between representations of mathematical ideas. The programmes of study are, by necessity, organised into apparently distinct domains, but pupils should make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. They should also apply their mathematical knowledge to science and other subjects.

The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes 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. Therefore, we must be ready and confident to build in challenges and puzzles. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.

At Christ Church, we have a daily maths lesson of approximately 60 minutes for all children in mixed ability classes. In addition to the daily maths lessons, teachers also provide:

• short fluency sessions (15 minutes), each day, to practise key calculating skills, counting, times tables (and corresponding division facts) or addition and subtraction facts
• opportunities to respond to feedback (possibly at the start of the next day’s maths lesson, or – even better – during the current lesson)
• same-day or next-day intervention for those children who have not grasped the key teaching point.

To support cross-curricular learning of mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding; maths learning is planned within topic and/or science lessons. We do not expect full lessons; but examples where maths can be seen, used and applied without compromising time spent on foundation subjects.

Impact

The intended impact of the teaching of mathematics at Christ Church is to ensure our children:

• Develop a love of maths
• Are competent in their age-related basic skills
• Are confident and resilient risk-takers
• Are curious and inquisitive mathematicians
• Understand the importance of maths in other subjects and the wider world
• Can explain their mathematical reasoning in solving problems
• Have a thorough understanding of appropriate mathematical vocabulary
• Can work independently to check and correct their work, understanding their mistakes so that they are less likely to make them again

The quality of teaching and learning in mathematics is assessed in a variety of ways at Christ Church, including: lesson observations, learning walks, pupil voice and book scrutinies.  Children are assessed on a half-termly basis using Target Tracker and  end-of -year tests are used in Years 3, 4 and 5 at the beginning and end of the school year to help track progress and independent ability within SATs-style papers. End of Key Stage 2 assessments also provide a more formal indication of the impact of our Maths curriculum.

Skills

Curriculum Plan