Mathematics Vision

‘To ensure all children are able and fluent mathematicians and are able to apply their skills in and across all subjects. Children are confident in recalling number facts and times tables that they can then apply in their own learning and articulate their mathematical understanding in order to reason.’

Intent

The main aim for mathematics at County Bridge Primary School is to ensure that all children from across all key stages, from entry in First Steps to Year 6, acquire the key knowledge and skills that they need in order to become competent and fluent mathematicians and therefore form a life-long positive relationship with maths. The mathematics curriculum, which is coherently planned and sequenced with cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills, builds towards clearly defined end points for each academic year group. This enables children to master key mathematics knowledge and skills, which they can apply to different areas within the subject and can easily, transfer their skills to reason, problem solve and make connections across the subject.

All children, regardless ability, gender or social class have equal opportunities to reach ambitious and achievable targets and develop skills and learning in order to become motivated, resilient and competent learners who accept challenges and are determined to succeed. All teaching staff have high expectations for all children and ensure that those with SEND or from vulnerable groups are effectively challenged by accessing the same learning as their peers, with support from visual aids and resources, and make excellent progress as a result. During periods where children have been or are required to work from home, full maths curriculum coverage has been implemented to ensure children access learning when working remotely.

Implementation

The maths curriculum, from First Steps Nursery to Year 6, has been developed so all children can build on their prior learning and apply knowledge and skills to reach the predetermined end points at the end of every school year. It has been carefully planned out and is bespoke to all our children ensuring that they achieve the mini-steps in order to embed the main objectives and end goals at the end of the school year. All staff follow a clearly mapped out steps curriculum, which has progressive objectives enabling children to build on prior learning and this is so that they learn more, know more and then can do more as a result. As a staff team, we have carried out whole school moderation against our catch up plans from lockdown and have monitored maths teaching across the school by looking at whole school book scrutiny. This was to ensure that all lost learning due to Covid-19 Lockdowns was covered and embedded and all gaps in children’s knowledge were closed.

In Early Years, the focus is to ensure that children gain the key skills in mathematics so that they have strong foundations to build on in Key Stage 1. Children in Nursery and Reception have daily focussed maths sessions where they develop counting, number formation and begin to understand the number system. During ‘child initiated’ time, children access a variety of planned maths tasks to apply their prior learning, in both the indoor and outdoor environments. Learning is captured in the pupils’ learning journeys and next step planning by the EYFS staff focuses on what each individual child needs in order to progress.

Building on the foundations set in Early Years, the focus for the rest of the school is to develop the key knowledge and skills required for number at the start of the academic year so that pupils can build on and apply this for the other areas within the subject. Across the school, there is a high priority in developing written methods for the four operations and these follow clear pathways that show the mini-steps to achieve the correct year group expectations. Children learn these steps to understand the reason why these written methods work and the maths behind them – rather than solely learning a method through rote learning and using it to solve calculations. Each half term throughout the year focuses on either addition and subtraction or multiplication and division, with other areas of maths planned in develop new knowledge and to apply prior learning.

Teachers, across all year groups, have expert knowledge to plan and deliver high-quality lessons that are suitably demanding for children and secure their understanding of key concepts in order to articulate their learning through high quality maths talk and reasoning. Children do not merely learn disconnected mathematics knowledge but develop their understanding and embed learning to long term memory through sequential lessons, reflecting on prior learning and transferring skills to other areas of the maths curriculum through problem solving and reasoning. Lessons are planned to ensure that children are given opportunities to work collaboratively, develop maths talk and reasoning and apply learning in various contexts and activities. The learning environment in every classroom from Early Years to Year 6 is supportive of key concepts and enables pupils to access key vocabulary, models & images and visual aids to support their learning of key year group objectives.

All maths lessons, from Year 1 to Year 6, start with a mental and oral starter where children practise key mental maths skills to support their written methods and mathematical understandings. In addition to this, daily maths lessons also have well- planned ‘Puzzles of the Day’. These allow children to apply and transfer prior knowledge and skills in order to solve challenging questions or puzzles (e.g. word problems, missing numbers, reasoning, prove it, true or false, etc.). These help to build children’s confidence and resilience to tackle activities that are more challenging and allow them to transfer knowledge and skills across many different contexts.

To develop confidence and number skills further, the ‘Times Table Rock Stars’ online program has been successfully used for the past three years for children in Years 2 to 6. Pupils aim to beat their previous scores and are motivated to achieve the next status level in order to gain various rewards and prizes.

Impact

Children at County Bridge Primary School leave Year 6 as confident, resilient and fluent mathematicians with inquisitive minds, who take pride in their learning. They are able to understand and see relationships between mathematical concepts and are able to use these to undertake activities and solve problems independently. All children are engaged and challenged effectively and talk about their learning by making links to all areas of the subject. Due to the structure of the well-planned maths curriculum across the whole school, children at County Bridge achieve outstanding outcomes.