Maths at Newlands Primary School

Intent

At Newlands we aim for children to become confident, flexible and creative mathematicians.  We want them to become fluent in recall of number facts such as number bonds and times tables and to be able to choose appropriate strategies to solve calculations efficiently.

Children need to be able to see links within their maths learning in order to reason, adapt and solve different problems, including problems based within real life contexts.  We want children to enjoy maths, show a positive mindset towards it and see themselves as mathematicians.  Children need to develop a wide range of problem solving skills that will support them in real life.

At Newlands we want staff to be confident in their maths teaching and have a positive, can-do attitude to maths.  We want them to develop a deep subject knowledge of maths in order to plan, teach and assess mathematics effectively.

Early Years & KS1 – using concrete resources, developing into written methods, verbal and written explanations:

KS2 – continuing use of concrete resources & practical experiences, developing clearer reasoning and more efficient problem solving skills

Implementation

Our curriculum overview is designed to focus on the basic number skills within maths early on in the year and provide opportunities to develop and apply these skills later in the year through other strands of maths.  At Newlands we teach a main maths lesson as well as additional ‘Mastering Number’ sessions to develop children’s fluency and recall of key number facts.  The NCETM Mastering Number KS1 programme is used to develop a deep understanding of numbers within 10 which supports children’s fluency in addition and subtraction facts and strategies within 10.  Year 3 work on embedding addition and subtraction facts and developing fluency in the times tables they have been taught.  The NCETM Mastering Number KS2 programme for Times Tables is being introduced within Years 4 and 5 to secure children’s fluency in multiplication and division facts.  Throughout all Mastering Number sessions, an emphasis is placed on using sentence stems to support children’s verbal reasoning and explanations.

Our aim is for children to develop a secure mathematical knowledge of core concepts before they move on.  The NCETM curriculum prioritisation and Ready to Progress materials have informed decisions over the positioning of teaching blocks across the year to ensure that the core concepts are taught earlier in the year with opportunities for studying the full breadth of the curriculum later in the year.  This allows teachers the flexibility to allocate longer periods of time to a concept if required, whilst still covering the core concepts within each year group.  In some year groups, coverage of some areas of the maths programme of study have been moved to the next year group so that the core concepts can be developed securely.  Where this is the case, it has been informed by the Ready to Progress materials and cross-referenced with the National Curriculum to identify which objectives are taught when.

Year R use the Mastering Number programme to explore number in practical ways through a deep focus on each number up to 10.  Children learn to subitise (recognise an amount without counting) and show numbers on their fingers in different ways without needing to count.  A focus on finding ways of making numbers up to 10 in Year R supports them to begin recalling number bonds to 5 and bonds to other numbers within 10.  There are many opportunities within the environment to work with larger numbers, as well as to learn about shapes and explore measures.  The daily routines of the classroom are used to provide contexts for all aspects of number work, e.g. register time and tidy up time.  Teachers also make cross-curricular links with their learning challenges, e.g. to learn about pattern and shape through Autumn celebrations such as Diwali.

Year 1 continue using the Mastering Number programme as their main maths lessons during the Autumn term to provide a smooth transition from the Early Years Framework to the National Curriculum.  The NCETM curriculum prioritisation resources have been used to plan a coherent sequence of units that provide a solid foundation of core concepts ready for coverage of the full breadth of the maths curriculum in Year 2.  White Rose materials supplement the Year 1 overview to begin to build in breadth with units such as Length & Height and Position and Direction.

From Year 1 to 6 detailed unit overviews are provided for each unit which outline the small steps of learning, key resources teachers should access, information about curriculum links and future and prior learning identified.  Teachers utilise a combination of White Rose, NCETM and Ready to Progress materials to plan from.  Common representations are used across the school to ensure consistency across year groups (see below).  Whilst fluency in number facts and methods is a key aim of our curriculum, teachers also provide daily opportunities for reasoning and applying knowledge to solve problems.

A set of Instant Recall facts are also used within the curriculum to ensure that key facts children need to be fluent in are taught and recalled.  They are in addition to the number based facts we teach and focus instead on measure, fractions and geometry in order to ensure a broad and balanced curriculum is provided.  These can be found in the front cover of children’s maths books and a copy is sent to parents for use at home as well.