Maths

Maths Intent:

The intent of our mathematics curriculum is to ensure everyone can learn and enjoy mathematics. We aim to achieve this by:

Developing children’s focus and engagement as learners who reason and seek to make connections
Developing children’s fluency in mental maths
Developing children’s confidence with using written calculation methods
Giving children opportunities to take part in competitions, workshops, presentations and trips.

Maths Implementation:

Maths takes place everyday and pupils are taught through whole-class interactive teaching, enabling all to master the concepts necessary for the next part of the curriculum sequence
Curriculum design ensures a coherent and detailed sequence of essential content to support sustained progression over time
Lesson design links to prior learning to ensure all can access the new learning and identifies carefully selected sequenced steps in progression to build secure understanding
In a typical lesson, the teacher leads back and forth interaction, including questioning, short tasks, explanation, demonstration and discussion, enabling pupils to think, reason and apply their knowledge to solve problems
Precise mathematical language enables all pupils to communicate their reasoning and thinking effectively
Assessment for learning is carried out regularly in classes and teachers provide children with daily reviews of previous learning as well as feedback from previous learning to address any misconceptions quickly.
Key number facts are learnt to automaticity and other key mathematical facts are learned deeply and practised regularly to avoid cognitive overload in working memory and enable pupils to focus on new learning
Examples, representations and models are selected to expose the structure of mathematical concepts and emphasise connections, enabling pupils to develop a deep knowledge of mathematics
Procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are developed in tandem because each supports the development of the other
Cross-curricular maths activities are encouraged across all subjects
In EYFS Children are gradually introduced to numbers, to promote higher understanding and to ensure children are fluent and confident.
In EYFS Children learn through a variety of activities.
Teachers are guided by the White Rose Primary Scheme of Learning. The reasons for using this scheme and resources are outlined below.

Maths impact:

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

Pre and post learning assessments for each topic taught
Weekly arithmetic tests
Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
Marking of written work in books.
Observing lessons and monitoring of planning to assess children’s learning and level of challenge.

The reasons we chose the White Rose Maths Primary Scheme of Learning can be summarised by the following points:

It provides a powerful CPA approach (concrete, pictorial then abstract) including in its use of models and images, which helps secure pupils understanding of mathematics and to make connections between different representations.
There is a great emphasis on mathematical language, questioning, explaining, reasoning and problem solving. This allows pupils to discuss the mathematics they are doing, support each other to take ideas further, and develop a broad and secure understanding.
It provides a connected, progressive curriculum, aiding the development of carefully sequenced lessons.
It develops the skills of teachers, without interfering with professional judgement by being over prescriptive.
The curriculum is designed to use skills that have already been learnt in different contexts (sometimes called ‘interleaving’) whenever possible. This helps pupils to remember and to make connections between different parts of the curriculum.
It combines the best of both ‘mastery’ and ‘spiral’ approaches in the curriculum. It follows many of the mastery principles – spending longer on topics to help gain deeper understanding, making connections, keeping the class working together on the same topic and a fundamental belief that, through effort, all pupils are capable of understanding, doing and improving at mathematics. But also recognising that just spending a good chunk of time on a topic doesn’t mean that all pupils will ‘master’ it the first time they see it, and that they need to see it again and again in different contexts and in different years to help them truly develop their understanding on their journey to mastery, so we’ve built in the revisiting and reinforcing features of spiral curricula too.
It is a curriculum that is ambitious and that works for all, with everybody studying the same topic and being provided with support and challenge as needed. Many of the teaching strategies we advocate for all pupils are particularly useful for pupils with SEND. See more on how the scheme supports pupils with SEND below:

White Rose: Supporting children with SEND

white-rose-blog-supporting-children-with-send-1.pdf

KIRFS (Key Instant Recall Facts)

KIRFS overview.docx

We have introduced KIRFs as a whole-school program for raising standards in Maths. KIRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts) are designed to support the development of the mental skills that underpin much of the maths work in schools. They are particularly useful when calculating, be it adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing.

Each half term children will be given one or two Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) to practise and learn at home as well as in school. It is important that they know these thoroughly and can recall specific facts instantly. Whilst children have a wide range of abilities in mathematics, the KIRFs are designed to be a set of facts that need to be learnt thoroughly as they build on each other year on year. Again, we stress that the children must aim to know their KIRF inside out, back to front and with instant recall.

We strongly encourage you to engage with your children in the learning of their KIRFs. We know that, by internalising these key facts which have been carefully structured to build upon each other term by term, year by year, children will leave St. Peter's Primary School with a much stronger foundation of mathematical understanding to build upon.

St Peter's Calculation policy

Maths Curriculum per year group

We follow the White Rose scheme of work for Maths. You can find the overview of the topics here. Please bear in mind that we aim to cater to each class' individual needs, so content covered in class may be slightly different from the overview here.

White Rose Small Steps Progression Documents

Maths Calculation Videos

Times Tables Rock Stars:

When it comes to times tables, speed AND accuracy are important – the more facts your child remembers, the easier it is for them to do harder calculations. Times Table Rock Stars is a fun and challenging programme designed to help pupils master the times tables. To be a Times Table Rock Star you need to answer any multiplication fact up to 12×12 in less than 3 seconds! The goal is for all participating rockers to be Times Table Rock Stars after 20 weeks!

Please find below the Parent Handbook for Times Tables Rock Stars. This contains all the information you need to support your child to become a Times Tables Rock Star. You can also download the free App by visiting your Play Store.

To use scatter tables to support your child in learning their times tables, you call out a question from the times table you are focusing on and your child has to point to the answer on the page. For example, if you are concentrating on the 5 times table, then find the Scatter Table for the 5s and call out questions like, “9 times 5” (your child points to 45), “6 times 5” (your child points to 30) or “5 times 12” (your child points to 60). Your child should be trying to get the answers correct each time and not worrying about the speed. The full set of scatter tables is provided in the document below.