Mathematics

Mathematics

Subject Lead: Mrs Moodie

A warm welcome to our Mathematics page. At St Joseph's, our curriculum has been designed to excite and inspire all of our children, ensuring it is purposeful, progressive and meaningful for every child. 

Intent

At St Joseph’s, the teaching of mathematics is of the highest importance as we know that it is an essential skill that will impact on the rest of our pupils’ lives. We wholeheartedly believe that all of our children can succeed in mathematics. Our aim is to send our children to the next stage of their learning as self-assured, resilient problem solvers.

We hold the firm belief that all children can succeed at mathematics and welcome the challenge to do so.

We aim for our children to:

• become confident and fluent mathematicians.

• develop a fascination and love of numbers.

• solve problems by reasoning, explain their mathematical thinking clearly and apply their mathematical skills in a wide range of situations.

In order to achieve the above, we have a continuity of lesson design across the school which includes varied fluency questions, modelled problem solving and reasoning, additional problems and independent work. Manipulatives and various representations are used when appropriate in each lesson to support learning, moving from concrete to pictorial to abstract as the lesson/block of work progresses.

Correct mathematical vocabulary is taught and linked through each concept, with clear progression planned for.

As a ‘Mastery for Maths’ school our vision is:

 A positive attitude to mathematics as an interesting and valuable subject;

 A range of learning strategies: working both cooperatively, collaboratively and independently;

 Confidence and competence with numbers and the number system;

 Be able to explore features of shape and space, and develop measuring skills in a range of contexts;

 An understanding of the importance of mathematics in everyday life;

 To ensure pupils become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics;

 Develop conceptual knowledge and an ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately;

 Ensure that pupils can reason mathematically and solve problems;

 For our children to develop a ‘can do’ attitude and perceive themselves as mathematicians.

Implementation

Key features of our Maths Mastery curriculum:

❖ High expectations for every child;

❖ Fewer topics, greater depth;

❖ Number sense and place value come first;

❖ Focus on mathematical thinking and language;

❖ Problem solving is central;

❖ Calculate with confidence– understand why it works.

At St. Joseph’s we teach maths daily following the National Curriculum. Lessons are pitched appropriately and consistently across the school. 

Our curriculum has been designed to enable pupils to develop and retain a rich network of mathematical knowledge, see the long-term plans below.

Lessons are designed in Maths to incorporate the EEF’s 7 step model to support metacognition. A wide range or resources are used to offer a broad and balanced provision for all children, to allow for a deep understanding.

Throughout aspects of the lesson children will experience a Concrete Pictorial Abstract (CPA) approach which allows pupils to spend enough time to fully explore a topic, reinforcing it with practice, before moving onto the next one.

Lessons are typically broken into six parts:

1. Recall – children begin the lesson with retrieval questions from previous maths learning to activate prior knowledge.
2. Goal Free Problem - this encourages children to calculate as many solutions as they can rather than calculate a single given goal. 
3. Learning Objective – the teacher introduces and explains the new learning for the lesson, including vocabulary.
4. Skills and Concepts
   1. I do – the teacher models the learning for the lesson using worked examples.
   2. We do - children practice the learning in groups, pairs or individually guided by the teacher.
   3. You do - practice learning through varied fluency to allow for a deep understanding.
5. Strategic Thinking
   1. I do – the teacher models the learning for the lesson using worked examples.
   2. We do - children practice the learning in groups, pairs or individually guided by the teacher.
   3. You do - practice learning through reasoning and problem-solving to allow for a deep understanding.
6. Reflection – ongoing reviewing of learning by both the adults and the children during the lesson.

Worked examples are used after the teacher’s initial input for the lesson, they provide an intermediary step between the teacher’s focused input and the pupils’ independent practice.
 

Mastering Number: Nursery to Year 2

The aim is to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The mastering number program is all about the children being able to understand number at a much deeper level to what they have been used to. Alongside the programme, we are reinforcing the use of manipulatives including rekenreks, Hungarian dice frames and Number blocks. Every Mathematical concept that you can think of can be illustrated and represented by using Numberblocks. All classrooms from Nursery to Y2 will have the Numberblocks on display to reinforce continuity and progression across EY and KS1. The desired outcome is that over time children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number.

Impact

• Pupils will be able to represent a concept in multiple ways, use the sufficient mathematical language to communicate related ideas and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations.

• Pupils will have a positive mindset for mathematics and strong subject knowledge so that they can be successful in Mathematics and use this in real life situations.

• Demonstrate a ‘can do’ attitude to mathematics tasks.

• Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their maths lessons and speak about how they love learning about maths. They can articulate the context in which mathematics is being taught and relate this to real life purposes.

• Pupil's use acquired vocabulary in maths lessons. They have the skills to use methods independently and show resilience when tackling problems