ST MARY'S CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

BEING A MATHEMATICIAN   

Our Mission Statement

Celebrating Excellence through our Faith and Learning

Rationale for teaching maths at St Mary's

At St Mary’s we believe that our children need a curriculum that allows them to become enthusiastic and engaged learners. The knowledge and skills taught in maths are set out in The National Curriculum (Department for Education, 2014). We have set these out in a year-group based sequence of learning which allows progression by building upon and revisiting knowledge and skills learnt in previous years.

Maths is an essential life skill. Our Maths curriculum is broad and balanced and is designed to provide pupils with the understanding, skills and knowledge needed to deal with everyday situations. When designing the Maths curriculum challenge and fluency are key aspects: we search for purposeful, meaningful opportunities to extend and deepen the pupil’s learning; we endeavour to utilise strong links with the local STEM industries and build upon school community expertise.

We want our pupils to develop an ability to reason, to think logically and to work systematically and accurately. All our children are challenged and encouraged to excel in maths. Children are taught using a ‘Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract’ approach. This enables all children to experience hands-on learning when discovering new mathematical topics and allows them to have clear models and images to aid their understanding. Arithmetic and basic maths skills are practised regularly to ensure key mathematical concepts are embedded and children can recall this information to see the links between topics in Maths.

At St Mary’s we believe that all children should have:

•  A deep understanding of number, shape, space and measure.
• A positive and resilient attitude towards mathematics and an awareness of the fascination of mathematics.
• Confidence in their mathematical knowledge, concepts and skills. 
• An ability to problem solve, to reason and to think logically.
•  A range of learning strategies: working both collaboratively and independently.
• Fluency in mathematics where children can express ideas confidently and talk about the subject using mathematical language.
• An understanding of the importance of mathematics in everyday life.
• The chance to become independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning. 

How do we teach maths at St Mary's? 

The teaching of maths is clearly set out in the White Rose maths scheme. This ensures progression but also allows teachers to adapt their teaching to suit their learners.  Teachers use a variety of quality resources to support the teaching of maths. Lessons include a mixture of practical and written activities and allow time for children to record their ideas in their own ways. Number talk is a big focus and this allows children the opportunity to reason to show their understanding.

At St Mary’s:

• Maths skills are taught daily. We focus on key mathematical skills including place value, the four operations and fractions.
• Reception and Key Stage 1 pupils have Mastering number session for 15 minutes 4 times a week. The aim is to deepen number facts and recall these more quickly. 
• Mental maths skills are taught and practised regularly at the start of each lesson.
• The progression for the learning of times tables is clearly mapped out and teachers are clear which times tables are taught in their year group and how to teach and test times tables.
• A range of reasoning resources are used to challenge all children and give them the opportunity to show their understanding.
• Number talk is used regularly to allow children to explain their understanding and reason about a particular problem. There are also chances for children to build on ideas from other pupils.
• A range of practical resources is always available to allow children to solve problems in a practical way.
• Children are taught through well planned lessons which may include targeted small group sessions and mixed ability whole class lessons.
• Homework is set to develop and review children's learning. 
• Where possible, links are made with other subjects across the curriculum.

How do we assess maths at St Marys?

We want our children to:

• Enjoy and be engaged in maths.
• Be able to talk and describe their understanding in their own way.
• Understand and explain why they are learning maths concepts and how this links to their everyday lives.
• Be able to represent their ideas in a variety of ways.
• See and make connections between ideas.
• Use their skill set in a variety of areas.

This will be evaluated by: -

Pupil achievement and progress

We measure pupil achievement – the acquisition of knowledge and skills and progress using a number of strategies, including:

• On-going teacher assessments, based on questioning in class, observations and pupil outcomes (which includes their work in books). Our assessments are supported by moderationwithin school and externally with other cluster schools; our age-related expectations support teacher assessments
• In-year and end of year assessments, these are a combination of teacher assessments and external tests, including Key Stage 2 National Curriculum tests – ‘SATs’
• Scrutiny of progress in books and through pupil conferencing
• Learning walks.

Pupil attitudes

We measure pupil attitudes using a number of strategies, including:

• feedback during pupil conferencing
• pupil and parent/carer surveys
• attitudes and behaviour in lessons across the curriculum
• the quality of the work produced, including taking pride in presentation