Elveden C of E Primary Academy

Maths

Maths Curriculum Statement: Elveden

Without Mathematics, there is nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.- Shakuntala Devi

INTENT

The 2014 National Curriculum for Maths aims to ensure that all children:

Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics
Are able to reason mathematically
Can solve problems by applying their Mathematics

At Elveden C of E Primary Academy, these skills are embedded within Maths lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are also able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. We are committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject, as well as an appreciation of the beauty and power of Mathematics.

IMPLEMENTATION

The content and principles underpinning the 2014 Mathematics curriculum and the Maths curriculum at Elveden reflect the mastery approach; mathematical thinking, fluency, variation, representation and structure. How our curriculum is implemented:

Teachers reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Mathematics.
The large majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace using the mastery approach.
Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support and intervention.
We use the concrete, pictorial, abstract approach to introduce and teach new concepts.
All lessons focus on fluency, problem solving and reasoning.
Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts.
Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess children regularly to identify those requiring intervention, so that all children keep up.

To ensure consistency and progression, the school uses the DfE approved ‘White Rose Maths Scheme’. This is fully aligned with the school’s ongoing engagement with the DFE funded Maths Hubs programme and Mastery Number in EYFS and KS1. Ongoing CPD ensures that staff at all levels understand the pedagogy of the approach. Teachers use careful questions to draw out children’s thinking and their reasoning. The class teacher then leads children through strategies for solving the problem, including those already discussed. Independent work provides the means for all children to develop their fluency further, before progressing to more complex related problems. Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Each lesson phase provides the means to achieve greater depth, with more able children being offered rich and sophisticated problems, as well as exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate.

IMPACT

The school has a supportive ethos and our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievement of others. Children can underperform in Mathematics because they think they can’t do it or are not naturally good at it. The White Rose Maths programme addresses these preconceptions by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success in Mathematics by developing a growth mind set. Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child. These factors ensure that we are able to maintain high standards, with achievement at the end of KS2 above the national average and a proportion of children demonstrating greater depth, at the end of each phase.

We monitor the impact of this subject through: