The National Curriculum states: 

Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

How we meet these aims

Mathematics is a life skill. It is an essential element of communication, widely used in society, both in everyday situations and in the world of work. At St Mary’s we endeavour to nurture a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject. Children here have a passion for maths. It is taught to be fun, engaging and enjoyable, as well as challenging, giving children the freedom and independence to question, investigate, test and understand a concept.

We follow the National curriculum, whose aims in maths are that all pupils become fluent in the fundamentals of maths, are able to reason mathematically and can solve a range of problems by applying their mathematics.   

Through using the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning as our starting point we aim to create confident mathematicians and are helping children across all the phase groups to become independent and reflective in their thinking.

Skills and knowledge progression

Across Key stage 1, the principal focus is for pupils to develop confidence and mental fluency with numbers in all four operations, and often use practical resources to help. They are gradually introduced to formal methods for written calculations in Number from Year 3 and we have agreed methods for written calculation for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Mathematics is an interconnected subject, in which pupils use and apply a range of skills in multiple situations and other subject areas too.

Mastery

We have adopted a mastery approach to teaching maths where children gain a full and deeper understanding of a mathematical concept.  It is not merely being able to recall key facts or know a method, it’s to have the understanding of what the fact actually means and understand why a method works in the way it does.  In order to support this, we use the three stage approach of concrete, pictorial and abstract teaching:

Concrete: Concrete is the “doing” stage, using concrete objects to model problems. Instead of the traditional method of maths teaching, where a teacher demonstrates how to solve a problem, children are encouraged to use apparatus to represent the problem how they see it using objects.

Pictorial: Pictorial is the “seeing” stage, using representations of the objects to model problems. This stage encourages children to make a mental connection between the physical object by replacing it with a visual representation through drawing.

Abstract: Abstract is the “symbolic” stage, where children now progress to representing the object as a number or mathematical symbol showing their understanding of the problem.

TimesTables RockStars

Children can also practise their timetables by logging into their individual account for TimesTables RockStars.