Maths

 

Overview

 The mathematics curriculum at Whitmore Park is designed to provide children with the knowledge and skills needed to not only support them through their time at the school, but also ensure they are ready for the challenges of the future. The design of the curriculum is underpinned by the understanding that children learn best when they engage with practical resources, then apply their understanding in visual and abstract forms. Learning is developed through problem solving relating to real-life contexts, promoting transferable learning that applies to multiple scenarios and across the curriculum. Children develop the ability to reason verbally using precise mathematical vocabulary and understand the importance of conveying mathematical understanding using drawings, equations and written explanations. Working alongside their peers in lessons, children learn to articulate their thinking and respect each other’s ideas when solving problems, building a learning community that support and challenge each other. Whilst a secure understanding is essential for fluent mathematical thinking, our curriculum promotes the importance of other mathematical skills such as measuring, creating and manipulating shapes, and data analysis: this allows for pupils to advance their understanding across the curriculum. 

 

 

 

Intent

 

At Whitmore Park, we believe a deep and broad understanding of mathematics is essential for our pupils in their everyday lives. We equip pupils with an appreciation for the simplicity, power and beauty of mathematics whilst developing in them a sense of curiosity and enjoyment for the subject. To ensure this, we not only design our curriculum to meet the aims required by the National Curriculum, but also employ and utilise the NCETM’s research derived ‘Five Big Ideas’. These underpin the teaching and facilitation of mastery within our classrooms with at least one principle incorporated within every maths lesson delivered. The Five Big Ideas are:

 

 

 

Coherence

Lessons are broken down into small connected steps that gradually unfold the concept, providing access for all children and leading to a generalisation of the concept and the ability to apply the concept to a range of contexts.

 

Representation and Structure

Representations used in lessons exposed the mathematical structure being taught, the aim being students can do the maths without recourse to the representation. 

 

Mathematical Thinking

If taught ideas are to be understood deeply, they must not merely be passively received but must be worked on by the student: thought about, reasoned with and discussed with others. 

 

Fluency

Quick and efficient recall of facts and procedures and the flexibility to move between different contexts and representations of mathematics. 

 

Variation

Variation is twofold. It is firstly about how the teacher represents the concept being taught, often in more than one way, to draw attention to critical aspects, and to develop deep and holistic understanding. It is also about the sequencing of the episodes, activities and exercises used within a lesson and follow-up practice, paying attention to what is kept the same and what changes, to connect the mathematics and draw attention to mathematical relationships and structure.

 

Mathematics lessons at Whitmore Park develop children’s ability to apply these principles and drive the curriculum forward with the understanding that honing these skills ensures children understand the wide ranging benefits that thinking mathematically has in overcoming problems.

 

What We Do, When

 

Whitmore Park utilises the White Rose scheme of learning, resulting in a logical and coherent progression of topics throughout each year group. Adaptations to the scheme have been made to address areas of strength and weakness identified throughout each Key Stage, in addition to being a reflection of our values and decisions as mastery practitioners.

Throughout every topic below, staff provide opportunity for children to apply the NCETM principles through exploration, problem solving tasks, reasoning, procedural fluency and representation. Staff introduce new topics using concrete resources and manipulatives, providing children opportunities to explore tasks with physical association and assisting understanding. As a school, we have Maths Mastery books to reinforce an additional need for quality reasoning amongst our pupils, based on areas identified as weaker through assessment and AfL opportunities. Maths is taught in the mornings, either as the first or second lesson of the day to ensure full engagement and concentration. Lessons last an hour and all follow the same structure:

 

Anchor Task – Each lesson begins with an anchor task showing concrete, pictorial or abstract representations of the current topic. During this explorative task, teachers question to draw out prior learning, linking to Rosenshine’s Principals and revisit ideas to aid commitment to long term memory. Brief retrieval opportunities spread over time has been proven most successful when building on the steps needed for retention and retrieval of knowledge. Children explore using concrete, pictorial and abstract problems through a variety of methods to achieve a final answer to the presented problem. Teachers will show worked examples of similar content when modelling and children will be given time to transfer their skills to the task they’ve been presented. Children show their methods and transfer any concrete resources they’ve used into a pictorial or abstract representation. 

 

My Turn – Dissemination of the needed knowledge for the lesson takes place during the ‘My Turn’ section, ensuring children are equipped to tackle the problem. They may acquire new skills that allow a further aspect of challenge to the Anchor Task. The learning acquired will be applied to future tasks presented in the lesson. Staff look to model all of the pre-requisites to each learning objective to ensure every child at every level can achieve.

 

Our Turn – This is the application of skills learned during the previous section. The teacher has modelled, and now will guide. Children can choose to receive support at this stage or continue to apply concepts independently. The teacher will model answering all questions at the end of this section as a method of AfL and to enable them to direct support during the independent application. 

 

Your Turn – Using Maths Mastery books, children access a host of questions that tie together the knowledge accrued during the lesson. Children will have access to supports such as the learning wall during this session where needed, and will practice their skills on questions that change both conceptually and procedurally. 

 

There is no set number of lessons per topic. For topics that are new to the children, these take longer to embed, with small steps broken down to facilitate whole classes progressing together. Where a topic is being revisited or augmented, less time is taken. Topics range from 4 to 30 lessons, but a teacher’s formative assessment dictates the final number per topic. Often, classes move at different rates through a topic, and therefore coverage needs rebalancing to facilitate. The curriculum plan is flexible enough to take into account numerous factors: the need for children to apply more reasoning; whole school weaknesses in areas such as fractions; disruptions caused by school events; misconceptions derived from effective formative diagnostics; and assessment opportunities. In its simplest form, we adapt the plan to reflect the reality of the learning with the understanding that deep learning takes longer, but lasts longer. If a child has good conceptual and procedural fluency, this will open them up to better reasoning and a secure depth to their mathematical education. 

 

The progression for each year group through their curriculum long term plan is monitored half termly by the maths lead to ensure coverage and prioritisation. Teachers who need to embellish the plans to cater for additional challenge or an extended topic to ensure understanding can utilise our school subscription to Classroom Secrets, Twinkl’s ‘Diving Deeper’ Mastery resources or the NCETM curriculum prioritisation materials. Consolidation time is provided within the overview to allow for summative assessment and revisiting topics where appropriate to embed understanding.

 

Key Stage One 

Children in KS1 learn how to:

  • accurately draw representations of number including dienes and place value counters
  • show more than one method to solve a problem 
  • label drawings, tables, diagrams etc. accurately with mathematical language (e.g. tens, one, place value, greater, equal)
  • write simple sentences, using mathematical vocabulary, explaining how they solved a problem

 

Lower Key Stage Two 

Children in Years 3 and 4 learn how to:

  • accurately draw representations of number including dienes and place value counters
  • show more than one method to solve a problem 
  • draw and label bar models to represent problems
  • label drawings, tables, diagrams etc. accurately with mathematical language (e.g. tens, one, place value, greater, equal)
  • write sentences using reasoning sentence stems with a greater emphasis on children comparing methods commenting why they chose to use one compared to another 

Upper Key Stage Two 

Children in Years 5 and 6 learn how to: 

  • accurately draw representations of number including dienes and place value counters
  • draw and label bar models to represent problems
  • label drawings, tables, diagrams etc. accurately with mathematical language (e.g. tens, one, place value, greater, equal)
  • write sentences using reasoning sentence stems with a greater emphasis on children comparing methods commenting why they chose to use one compared to another 
  • incorporate a range of methods into a coherent explanation of how to solve a problem including strategies chosen, justifying reasoning. 

 

Alongside Maths Mastery books, children access fluency based problems within their Fluency books. These problems contain procedural and conceptual variation to expose children to a wide variety of problems to ensure they are assessment ready and familiar with concepts taught in the ‘My Turn’ section of each lesson. Arithmetic lessons and daily fluent in 5 practice takes place within this book.