Maths

Vision & Desire

Through focusing on maths mastery, a growth mindset and the belief that everybody can achieve - our vision is that all children will not only succeed with a smile in their maths learning but also build solid foundations for all learning in future years. Our desire is for children to look back on their time at St Michael’s CE Primary and be secure in the knowledge that they not only achieved in maths but it is where seeds of perseverance and resilience were also sown and nurtured.

Intent

Our intention at St Michael’s is directly in line with the 2014 National Curriculum: we strive to ensure that the children are taught together to become fluent and competent mathematicians who can explain the reasoning behind their conjectures and generalisations. They will demonstrate their conceptual understanding using a variety of different representations (concrete, pictorial and abstract - CPA) whilst continually repeating key basic skills throughout the process of solving problems. Therefore, by the end of Year 6, pupils will: •

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics,
• Be able to reason Mathematically,
• Solve problems by applying their fluency and reasoning skills.

Within the Early Years environment, there are short daily maths teachings that have a “hands on” focus. This ensures that, by the start of KS1, they are confident in the following six areas that provide a platform for everything they encounter as they progress through their Maths learning at Primary School, and beyond:

• Cardinality and Counting,
• Comparison,
• Composition,
• Pattern,
• Shape and Space,
• Measures.

Implementation

We were early adopters of the 2014 curriculum and, as such, were able to experiment with a number of ways forward to best suit our children and school. We implement a blocked curriculum approach by using the White Rose Maths Hub (WRM) scheme of work (SoW) as the backbone. This ensures that we have consistency and progression in all national curriculum skills across the entire school.

Because we believe it is important to tailor the SoW to the children - rather than the other way round - teachers use additional materials from Third Space Learning, the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) and Cambridge University’s NRICH project to name just a few rather than solely using WRM. Precise questioning, individual support and resources (CPA that include bar models, number lines, numicon and dienes) aid differentiation within the classroom to ensure all learners are included and extended. Our bespoke SoW provides the children with time to ‘make sense’ of what is represented as well as time to play with and challenge ideas. At the same time, children are required to go beyond ‘What is the answer?’ and to show their solutions in many ways in order to gain a deeper understanding and make connections between strands of mathematics. This is also present in various ‘Low floor / high ceiling’ tasks. By going ‘deeper’ rather than ‘faster’ through the curriculum, teachers ensure the children are taught together and extended in the correct way. On top of this, teachers provide children with in class feedback during the lessons so that children are able to see their progress immediately and make adjustments as required.

At St Michael’s, the SoW creates an effective systematic teaching approach that engineers success and unlocks pathways of mathematical thinking. By focusing on declarative content first (mathematical facts such as times tables, formulae, principles and concepts), the children's knowledge becomes secure like the foundations of a house. These form the corner and side pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that enable the children to begin to see the whole picture more easily. A school-wide ‘Numeracy Passport’ helps children to work on these key facts outside of the maths classroom. When this knowledge is understood and committed to memory, procedural content is introduced (mathematical methods that show the children know how to complete questions). These methods can be likened to a telescope which enables the user to see the stars and constellations in the sky. Using the method/telescope correctly produces the best results to find the answers/stars. Finally, conditional content is presented (mathematical strategies that combine the facts and methods). Teachers focus on gaining the correct balance between ‘recall of facts and deployment of methods’ with ‘explaining and reasoning of thoughts’. Talk within the classroom is essential for reasoning and learning but it is balanced correctly with recall and the deployment of the facts. Teachers present this in the classroom utilising the small steps of WRM and gradually increasing the complexity of the mathematical problems. We focus on this conditional content and balance as children do not learn to problem solve by continually completing tricky problems; automating declarative and procedural content is required to free working memory first. The novice skier becomes an expert by gaining skills that are then practised on the different coloured runs before attempting a black run. In order to automate facts and methods, as well as combat the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, teachers provide children with opportunities to consolidate knowledge through ‘Early Morning Work’ (EMW), ‘flashbacks’ at the start of sessions as well as ‘five minute fillers’ during the school day.

In addition to all this, we also begin each academic year by utilising the Week of Inspirational Maths (WIM) project designed by Dr Jo Boaler at Stanford University.

The lessons, resources and videos are specifically designed to inspire the children and get them excited about the year ahead with the following mindset messages:

• Struggle is important
• You must believe in yourself
• Speed is not important
• Brains grow and change
• Mistakes are powerful
• Our brains think about maths visually
• Patterns are all around us

These messages are often revisited throughout the year in order to create a culture of valuing perseverance, resilience, passion and effort within maths as well as the children’s overall life. This is directly in line with the evidence and research produced by the psychologist Angela Duckworth.

Impact

Assessments are a key aspect of our teaching process; we endeavour to make them practical and purposeful in order to ensure each child has the correct work so they can both attain and progress. Short term assessments occur in lessons via observations, ‘exit tickets’, questions, quizzes, ‘bomb questions’ and conversations. Misconceptions are then identified and addressed as soon as possible where the teacher will be able to pinpoint the best way forward (be it via interventions, EMW, ‘Five Minute Fillers’, other adults or extension on lesson concept duration). After a block of learning / series of lessons, another informal assessment takes place that can be utilised to identify gaps in learning and understanding. Teachers plan lessons to fill these gaps before moving on. At the end of each term, a more formal assessment is carried out (from Year 2 upwards) that links to the coverage of that term. These results can then be used to keep track of ongoing target areas but the assessments themselves are also used to aid the children in cultivating the strategies they can utilise when answering questions as well as the teachers’ planning. Teachers also use the findings from these assessments to plan future interventions and other short sessions. These assessment tools are utilised to inform whole school tracking of attainment and progress. They are used within ‘Pupil Progress’ meetings after being entered onto ‘Sonar’ and enable a larger plan to ensure Maths attainment and progress at St Michael’s is in line with the Essex and National average, if not above.

Progression Documents