Nelmes Primary School

Maths

Intent

At Nelmes Primary School, our intent for Maths is to teach a rich, balanced and progressive curriculum, to equip our pupils with a powerful set of maths tools to understand and engage with the 21^st century: to prepare them for their next steps in their learning.

The aim of our maths curriculum is to:

Foster a positive attitude to maths as an interesting and engaging part of the curriculum.
Ensure all pupils use mathematical concepts, facts and procedures, flexibly and fluently.
Develop children’s accuracy and speed in recalling key number facts and to be able to use these to work out unknown facts
Have a sufficient depth of knowledge and understanding to reason and explain mathematical concepts and to use them to solve problems.
Develop confident and articulate communicators.
Develop personal qualities such as perseverance, resilience, patience, aspiration and self-belief through a sense of achievement and success.

The mapping of maths across the school shows clear progression in line with age related expectations and the 2014 National Curriculum. Termly objectives build progressively over the year, revisiting skills to ensure mastery. The curriculum has been designed to meet the needs of the pupils in the school community, with teachers ensuring that they adapt lessons to support the children regardless of their starting point.

Implementation

Children are taught maths every day, it is given dedicated time in order for children to develop and embed key skills and knowledge. In maths children focus on learning key facts and methods, these are applied though reasoning and problem solving. This approach allows children to develop strong foundations and fluency in this core subject.

To ensure consistency and progression the school follows the schemes of work developed by White Rose Maths which objectives reflect those of the 2014 National Curriculum and the non-statutory Mathematics guidance for key stages 1 and 2 (June 2020).

Practice and consolidation play a key role and sequence of lessons are developed to build on fluency and to apply knowledge and skills to reasoning and problem solving tasks. Independent work provides the means for all pupils to develop their fluency and apply their knowledge; teachers are able to adapt this learning to meet the needs of individuals where appropriate. Lessons are planned to provide the means to achieve greater depth, with more able children being offered more challenging tasks within the lesson as appropriate. Decisions about when to progress will always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly will be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material will consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.

Teachers have expert subject knowledge and they use precise questioning, assessment for learning and tasks to assess understanding to identify those children who require intervention, those who are ready to develop a deeper understanding and to inform their immediate teaching. In-lesson feedback ensures that misconceptions are swiftly dealt with whilst also allowing teachers to provide challenge. Effective marking of pupils’ work identifies what they have done well and misconceptions. Pre- learning activities provide teachers with starting points to plan lessons from, while ‘Now Try These’ tasks offer children opportunities to apply knowledge.

In EYFS and the Rainbow (ARP) concrete manipulatives and pictorial representations are used to support conceptual understanding and make explicit links. The teaching of mathematics is supported using various resources such as White Rose Maths and story books.

In Key Stage 1, concrete manipulatives and pictorial representations are used to support conceptual understanding and make explicit links. The teaching of mathematics is through the White Rose Maths scheme. A range of practical activities and investigations are used to ensure the children gain a secure understanding of maths.

In Key Stage 2 manipulatives and pictorial representations continue to be used to support and extend understanding. The teaching of mathematics is through the White Rose Maths scheme. Children in years 5 and 6 are taught in sets.

Impact

The maths curriculum and outstanding teaching at Nelmes’ Primary ensures that all pupils are well equipped for their next steps in their education and for life in the 21^st century. Pupils have excellent attitudes to learning and are motived and interested learners who understand the importance of being fully engaged in their learning.

Monitoring of lessons and books show that children are given a range of activities from the different aspects of the maths curriculum, with children being provided with support and challenge when needed and appropriate.

Effective termly monitoring indicate that children make very good progress throughout the whole school, including those with special educational needs and those who are pupil premium. Regular formative assessment informs teaching to support and enable the success of each child.

Pupil outcomes at the end of key stage 1 and 2 are excellent, with outcomes above and well above national averages and a high proportion of children achieve greater depth standard at the end of each phase. Pupil outcomes at the end of each group are very good across the school.

More information about mathematics at Nelmes can be found in the : -