"Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers." - Shakuntala Devi

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The member of staff responsible for Maths is Mrs Gould.

 

How Dovecotes Primary School’s Maths Curriculum Promotes Our Core Values:

 

Be Ambitious - Maths at Dovecotes encourages pupils to work hard and challenge themselves to achieve their true potential, building on progression of knowledge and skills.

 

Be Brave; Be Creative - As educators, we provide pupils with the mathematical skills they need in order to progress as competent and confident mathematicians who are not afraid to use their problem-solving skills in imaginative ways to ultimately tackle any mathematical problems they are faced with.

 

Be Honest - Pupils are encouraged to be truthful and open about their difficulties and mistakes so that barriers can be easily overcome.

 

Be Kind – Pupils are also viewed as leaders of learning and are expected to be kind and support their peers to overcome obstacles in their mathematical understanding and celebrate the achievements of others.

 

Be Healthy – We provide a safe, learning environment whereby all pupils learn together, with no fear of failure, despite often having differing starting points helps to develop a healthy, ‘can do’ relationship with maths which is essential in creating the positive mindset to tackle more challenging problem-solving questions.

 

Intent – What Do We Aspire For Our Children? 

 

In Maths, we want pupils to build sound conceptual understanding using concrete manipulatives and pictorial representations (where appropriate) to embed and master key knowledge and skills. We provide opportunities for pupils to practice and overlearn so that they become fluent mathematicians who can recall knowledge rapidly and accurately. We want pupils to build on from basic skills within the four operations so that they are better able to calculate mentally and perform written procedures effectively and efficiently using intelligent practice. We want pupils to reason about concepts and make connections in order to problem solve and demonstrate their understanding. We also place a strong emphasis upon the development of mathematical vocabulary so that pupils are able to share and explain their mathematical ideas and reasoning. We intend for pupils to have a resilient ‘can do’ attitude when it comes to maths and to view maths as something that is enjoyable and achievable which will support them throughout their wider learning journey.

 

By the end of EYFS children will:

• Have a deep understanding of numbers to 10, being able to develop their skill of subitising up to 5 as well as automatically recalling number bonds up to 10.

• Understand the ‘one more/one less’ relationship between consecutive numbers.

• Use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance and time to compare quantities and objects in order to help them solve problems.

• Recognise, continue, copy, create and describe patterns, exploring characteristics of everyday objects and shapes, using their mathematical language to describe them.

 

By the end of Key Stage 1 children will:

• Develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value. This should involve working with numerals, words and the four operations, including with practical resources, e.g. concrete objects and measuring tools.

• Develop their ability to recognise, describe, draw, compare and sort different shapes and use the related vocabulary.

• Use a range of measures to describe and compare different quantities such as length, mass, capacity/volume, time and money.

• Know their number bonds to 20 and be precise in using and understanding place value up to 100. An emphasis on practice at this early stage will aid fluency.

• Be fluent in the 2, 3 and 5 times tables.

 

By the end of Lower Key Stage 2 children will:

• Become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and the concept of place value.

• Develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers.

• Develop their ability to solve a range of problems, including with simple fractions and decimal place value.

• Have the opportunity to draw with increasing accuracy and develop mathematical reasoning so they can analyse shapes and their properties and confidently describe the relationships between them. It should ensure that they can use measuring instruments with accuracy and make connections between measure and number.

• Have instant recall of their multiplication tables up to and including the 12 x multiplication table and show precision and fluency in their work.

 

By the end of Upper Key Stage 2 children will:

• Extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger integers.

• Develop the connections that pupils make between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio.

• Develop their ability to solve a wider range of problems, including increasingly complex properties of numbers and arithmetic, and problems demanding efficient written and mental methods of calculation. With this foundation in arithmetic, pupils are introduced to the language of algebra as a means for solving a variety of problems. Teaching in geometry and measures should consolidate and extend knowledge developed in number.

• Classify shapes with increasingly complex geometric properties and that they learn the required vocabulary they need to describe them.

• Be fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division, and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages.

 

Implementation – How Will We Deliver The Curriculum? 

 

Knowledge at the Heart of the Curriculum - Understanding Different Types of Knowledge in Maths 

 

Substantive Knowledge 

 

The substantive knowledge is that which we teach as fact and in maths this is primarily the type of knowledge covered, such as 4 is greater than 3. 

 

Procedural Knowledge

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In Maths, we teach a lot of procedural knowledge as part of this, such as how to do a long division. 

 

Disciplinary Knowledge

 

We aim to develop disciplinary knowledge through our maths curriculum, through children using and applying the substantive knowledge that they've learned. Through the depth for all questions, children have the opportunity to reason and problem solve. We ask children to investigate questions such as 'If the answer is x, what is the question? ' which nurture curiosity and encourage the conjecture and problem-solving skills that are crucial to the mathematics discipline.

 

• At Dovecotes, the ‘White Rose’ scheme is used to deliver the ‘Mastery’ approach to Maths from Early Years to Year 6, encouraging the grasp of essential knowledge and skills through small steps.

• All pupils, when introduced to a new concept, build competency using the CPA (concrete, pictorial and abstract) approach as follows:

• Concrete – children have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing.

• Pictorial– children then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can then be used to reason and solve problems.

• Abstract – with the foundations firmly laid, children can move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.

• The CPA Approach is embedded across school and demonstrated in our Calculation Policy beginning with the use of Numicon in the Early Years.

• Building Fluency is the foundation of every Maths lesson before progressing onto Reasoning, and Problem Solving.

• In addition to daily Maths lessons, we spend the first 10 minutes of each morning in Y1 – Y6 engaged in ‘Morning Mental Maths’ whereby pupils revisit prior learning to develop fluency and rapid recall in key arithmetic skills. White Rose’s daily ‘Flashback 4’ activity also enables pupils to regularly practise and embed prior learning at the start of every Maths lesson.

• The use of ‘Times Tables Rockstars’ throughout school also supports pupils in rapidly recalling times tables facts in a fun, competitive way, with individual and class progress evidently recorded.

• In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), we relate the mathematical aspects of the children’s work to the Development Matters statements and Early Learning Goals (ELG), as set out in the EYFS profile document. Pupils develop their subitising skills and partake in explicit maths instruction daily which is recorded in a class floor book; they then continue to access Maths throughout their enhanced and continuous provision.

 

Impact - How Do We Know Our Maths Curriculum Is Effective? 

 

We measure the impact of our curriculum through assessment for learning opportunities, book scrutiny, pupil and parent voice feedback, data analysis and learning observations. Our pupils are confident, articulate and enthused by their maths learning, keen to share the knowledge they have acquired. Pupils are able to recall key facts and work efficiently using appropriate methods. We know we have succeeded when pupils leave year 6 having achieved at least the expected standard in Maths and as a result are fully prepared for the next stage in their learning journey.

 

For further information about the Maths curriculum please contact Mrs. Gould our subject lead through the school email address.