Maths

Maths Curriculum Information 

Maths intent 

At Collingwood Primary School our mathematics curriculum is designed to foster a love of learning, equipping pupils with  knowledge of essential maths skills. We aim to develop confident and resilient mathematicians, who can draw upon their fluency skills to problem solve, think critically and have fun!

Our intent is to: 

1. Build strong early mathematical concepts: Starting in Early Years and through to KS1 to ensure children have a secure understanding of quantity and number, operations, shape and space and forming connections between these skills. 

2. Improve fluency and recall: Ensuring children develop speed and accuracy recalling facts such as number bonds, doubling, halving and times tables. (Procedural fluency)

3. Promoting problem solving and reasoning skills: Encouraging children to explore their ideas and justify their thinking using mathematical vocabulary. (Conceptual understanding)

4. Nurturing a growth mindset across pupils and parents: emphasising learning from our mistakes in mathematics to build resilience and self-belief in our abilities as learners. Supporting the wider community of the school to foster this belief at home, through support for parents and carers. 

5. Encouraging a love of mathematics: improving children’s perceptions of mathematics as a subject through whole school celebrations and encouraging mathematical enjoyment. 

Implementation 

National Curriculum expectations:

The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:  become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.  reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language  can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and nonroutine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions. Mathematics is an interconnected subject in which pupils need to be able to move fluently between representations of mathematical ideas. The programmes of study are, by necessity, organised into apparently distinct domains, but pupils should make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. They should also apply their mathematical knowledge to science and other subjects. The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, decisions about when to progress should always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.

How this looks at Collingwood:

Our maths curriculum is designed to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum, through the use of the  White Rose scheme of learning. Teaching is planned  across three terms, in blocks, to deepen understanding. Teachers draw on a range of resources to create the best possible learning environment for pupils, moving the children from the stages of concrete (“doing” with apparatus) to pictorial (using and drawing pictures and notation to solve) then abstract (applying known facts to new scenarios and working mentally). Consolidation weeks are built into each term to revisit outcomes that have been identified as needing further development.

Fluency and retrieval in maths are a priority; FAST maths and recall of times tables and number bonds take place throughout each week to develop recall of mathematical facts and allow children to see links in their learning, e.g. the relationships between the 2x, 4x and 8x multiplication tables.

Reasoning is part of every lesson.  A variety of challenges enable children to verbalise and discuss their understanding. Children are taught to ‘explore’, maths, ‘clarify then ‘apply" their mathematical skills.   We use Times Tables Rockstars and other online subscriptions to support learning at home and at school. Ask your child what their current ‘Rock Star’ status is!

Collingwood’s Curriculum Policy and School Aims, can be found on the policies page of this website.  An overview of what is being taught to each year group can be found on separate Class Pages on this website ("Children" tab drop down menu) and guidance on more personalised learning eg spellings, times tables and reading, can be found in your child's own "Supporting Learning Book" which should be kept in their book bag and go between home and school each day.  If you would like to know more, please ask at the office and our Class teachers or Subject Leads will be happy to contact you.