Intent, Implementation and Impact

At Chopwell Primary School we recognise the importance of mathematics throughout each child’s every day and future life. It enables children to understand relationships and patterns in both number and space in the world around them. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. We intend to give each child the self-confidence and resilience to reach their full potential by ensuring that they have the tools to calculate fluently, reason logically, problem solve and think in abstract ways.

Intent 

• Children become confident, competent and independent mathematicians 
• Build a deep conceptual understanding of maths and its interrelated content so that children can apply their learning in different situations
• Develop children’s ability to articulate, discuss and explain their thinking using appropriate mathematical vocabulary 
• ‘Mistake friendly’ classrooms where children see mistakes as learning tools – there is an emphasis placed upon developing the power to ‘think’ rather than just the ‘do’
• Instil the mind-set in every child and staff member that everyone can do maths and that maths is for everyone…EVERYONE CAN!
• Children develop into resilient and inquisitive learners – skills needed to become life-long mathematicians
• Calculate clearly and accurately.

• Be fluent in number facts and multiplication times tables

• Deliver an inspiring and engaging mathematics curriculum, taught by highly-enthusiastic staff, which sparks curiosity and excitement and which nurtures confidence in maths

Implementation  

We teach maths daily covering all aspects of the National Curriculum, following the suggested sequence set out in the NCETM Curriculum Prioritisation units in Reception and  KS1 and White Rose Maths in KS2. We feel these provide a coherent order to our teaching of different units across the years and focus on embedding the important of number automaticity especially in Reception and KS1 ensuring mathematical foundations are ready to build on in KS2.  By frequently revisiting this core group of manipulatives and representations, year on year, the children can consolidate these essential representations and use them to support their thinking and problem solving.  

Our move to using the NCETM curriculum in Reception and KS1 was largely done to improve early number fluency in recall as well as calculation methods, automaticity of key facts and number sense.  In Reception and KS1 there are additional 15-minute whole class maths sessions following the Mastering Number Programme. In KS2 children begin their lesson with the four calculations and a Flashback 4 which consolidates written calculations, practises and embeds previous learning.

Lessons are meticulously and intelligently designed to expose children to big mathematical ideas. Teachers craft lessons which allow children to make small steps of progress and build towards mastering a concept. Vocabulary is explicitly and rigorously taught using sentence stems to develop children’s’ reasoning and explanations. Teacher’s questions are structured in ways which require critical and creative thinking to in order to solve problems.

Many lessons involve physical materials for children to use and manipulate. This allows children to make sense of the structures of mathematics whilst working in groups discussing and reasoning about their findings. This links with our focus on oracy, encouraging children to explain their thinking and use the correct vocabularly - so they learn to 'talk like a mathematician' from an early age.

We use Time Table Rock Stars to support teaching and learning. This is a system that the children use to practise the instant recall of their multiplication and division facts. When learning the times tables, speed and accuracy are important – the more facts a child remembers, the easier it becomes to complete harder calculations. Times Tables Rocks Stars is a fun and engaging programme designed to help children master their times tables. This enables children to practise daily both at home and at school. In KS1 children also have access to Numbots and White Rose Maths to support their learning both at home and school.

Impact

The impact of our aims and implementation of our aims results in an effective approach to teaching and learning. Children explore, critique, prove, disprove and play with maths in real and meaningful contexts. Making connections across the curriculum and equipping children with essential skills to reason and solve problems. End of unit and end of term assessments are used by teachers, alongside their professional judgements, to support children in the next steps of their learning. With the implementation of Mastering Number in KS1 we are beginning to see a greater understanding and depth of number fluency and automaticity throughout the school.

As a result of the mathematics teaching and learning taking place at Chopwell Primary you will find:

• Children who are increasingly confident using and understanding mathematical language
• Children who can talk and discuss problems using mathematical language and reasoning.
• Lessons that follow a clear concrete, pictorial, abstract approach so that conceptual understanding is built up over time
• Representations used repeatedly, year on year, so that children have a deep understanding of the maths being taught
• Relentless focus on the automaticity of key facts and knowledge.
• Ongoing assessment used to ensure children keep up and make good progress.

Our children think like mathematicians, behave like mathematicians and communicate like mathematicians.

Mathematics in the EYFS (taken from EYFS Framework)

Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding – such as using manipulatives, including small pebbles and tens frames for organising counting – children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures. It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.

Mathematics ELG: Number

Children at the expected level of development will: - Have a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number; 14 - Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5; - Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.

ELG: Numerical Patterns

Children at the expected level of development will: - Verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system; - Compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity; - Explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, double facts and how quantities can be distributed equally.

In Reception we use White Rose Maths for planning - this is based on the 5 counting principles.

   1. The one-one principle - This involves children assigning one number name to each object being counted. Children need to ensure that they count each object only once ensuring they have counted every object.

   2. The stable-order principle - Children understand that when counting, the numbers have to be said in a certain order.

   3.  The cardinal principle - Children understand that the number name assigned to the final object in a group is the total number of objects in that group.

   4. The abstraction principle - This involves children understanding that anything can be counted including things that cannot be touched including sounds and movements, eg, jumps.

   5. The order-irrelevance principle - This involves children understand that the order that we count a group of objects in is irrelevant.  There will still be the same number.

Maths lessons are very hands on, and based on the concrete, pictorial abstract methods used throughout the school.

In EYFS the children will ..

• Sing lots of number songs and rhymes whilst learning to count forwards and backwards.
• Learn all about shapes and their properties so that they can describe them in simple terms.
• Use a range of equipment to explore capacity, weight, size and money in real-life situations (such as tape measures, balances, water toys, a till and real coins).
• Learn number facts such as number bonds and doubles to enable fast recall.
• Practise counting regular and irregular arrangements of objects accurately.
• Learn how to add two numbers together and how to subtract a small number from a bigger number.
• Have daily opportunities to practise their maths skills indoors and outdoors in child-led provision.
• Are taught how to write numerals.
• Play lots of games in order to practise counting and recognising numerals.
• Learn how to put numbers in the correct order on a number-line.
• Take part in reasoning and problem-solving activities appropriate to their age

Children will be immersed in a mathematical environment which enables them to explore, discover and learn new concepts.