Maths
Intent
At the Upper Wharfedale Primary Federation, our aim is for our children to become resilient, confident skilled mathematicians who are able to transfer their skills learnt into the maths that they meet in everyday life. Through our commitment to excellent teaching and a well-designed and ambitious curriculum, our lessons aim to motivate and engage all children allowing them opportunities to develop and master their skills through reasoning, creativity and collaboration. We endeavour to ensure that ALL our children reach their potential and become fluent mathematicians who thrive upon conquering challenges and puzzles that mathematics brings and who are not afraid to make mistakes. Mathematics affects many aspects of our daily lives, so we believe the teaching of maths should not stand alone. Therefore, to allow children to reason and problem-solve efficiently, all pupils access STEM or cross curricular maths sessions during the academic year.
The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:
- 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.
- reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
- can 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.
Implementation
At The Upper Wharefdale Primary Federation, we endeavour to deliver maths in a fun and engaging manner. Using the Long Term Plan, staff deliver a curriculum, which builds on their existing skills and progress year on year. When planning daily lessons, our teachers follow the following sequence when introducing a new concept:
- Concrete – children should have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them to understand what they are doing
- Pictorial – children should add pictorial representations alongside their concrete work. These can then be used to help reason and problem solve.
- Abstract – moving from the concrete and pictorial to the abstract and being able to solve problems in a more abstract way.
During the maths lesson, through carefully chosen tasks and activities, there are opportunities for Mathematical talk, direct teaching, guided teaching and independent working to allow children opportunities to explore the concept and demonstrate their understanding. The tasks and activities chosen to support the children’s learning move from varied fluency to reasoning and problem solving and children have access to apparatus and manipulatives to support their learning as required.
The children return to the different areas of mathematics regularly so that their learning is constantly reinforced and they have plenty of opportunity to apply their skills. At the start of each maths lesson there is an opportunity to practise existing skills and an emphasis on using their mental and arithmetic skills.
Throughout school the children are taught a range of mental and written strategies which follows the school calculation policy. When a range of strategies have been taught it is expected that the children will choose the method that they are most comfortable with and can use efficiently. The children receive feedback (verbal and active marking) during the lesson or soon after and intervention is carried out where necessary to clarify and misconceptions or to correct errors.
Impact
At The Upper Wharfedale Primary Federation, our children have a love of maths and they can articulate this through pupil voice, recognising their own contribution and learning. They see the importance of maths in the modern world. The children build upon their skills year on year and can apply their skills and see the relevance of their mathematical learning. The school has a supportive ethos and our approaches support children in developing their collaborative and independence skills. Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child. Following each unit of work, the children complete a post-learning assessment using in order for teachers to track their progress against specific objectives taken from the National Curriculum as well as identify objectives which need revisiting. More formal assessments are undertaken across the school every term which are used to track in-year progress. The teaching of maths is also monitored through observations, learning walks and the monitoring of children’s work. The expect that the majority of our children will achieve age related expectations.
Progression
Reception curriculum mapping mathsUpper Wharfedale Primary Federation EYFS Maths Progression Map final
White rose Maths Progression
maths Final draft 3
policy-mastery-calculation (1)
Websites
Provides lots of different interactive games, for all year groups in all areas of the maths curriculum, for children to practise and embed their skills.
Funky Mummy is a mobile friendly number facts game aimed at Reception, Yr1 and Yr2 children to help them practise quick recall of addition, subtraction and multiplication facts.
https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/
https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check
These websites allow children to practise their rapid recall of multiplication facts in preparation for Year 4 multiplication check.
A fun way for children to practise rapid recall of multiplication facts and other number work, allowing them to increase the speed they need to answer questions as they become more confident.
https://www.ncetm.org.uk/news/mastering-number-a-new-programme-for-early-primary-pupils/