Mathematics

Maths at Walsh Memorial C of E Infant School

Intent

At Walsh Memorial C of E Infant School we aim to instill a love of Mathematics and encourage all children to become confident, lifelong learners and to have a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject. We value a curriculum that is creative and engaging, ensuring that it is accessible for all to make progress in lessons. We build essential mathematical knowledge, develop and embed key skills and challenge and extend the children’s thinking and mathematical talk. We give children experiences of practical and investigative problem solving and encourage children to reason mathematically.  We want children to make rich connections across mathematical ideas and be able to apply their mathematical knowledge across other areas of our curriculum. We want children to feel confident to take risks in their learning. We aim to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and confidence in choosing strategies for problem solving. It is important that our children develop a confident and positive ‘can do’ attitude towards Mathematics to understand its purpose and be able to apply their knowledge to their everyday lives.

Implementation

The National Curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics
• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry
• can solve problems by applying their mathematics

 At Walsh Memorial CE Infant School, we recognise that in order for pupils to progress to deeper and more complex problems, children need to be confident and fluent in all areas of mathematics. We follow the National Curriculum Programme of Study as the basis for the teaching of Mathematics and Development Matters in EYFS.  This is enhanced and extended through additional mastery materials including White Rose schemes of work, NCTEM and  NRich. This year 2019/20 we are working alongside the Maths Hub for embedding a mastery approach and a reasoning rich curriculum. Being part of this project continues to ensure that staff at all levels understand the pedagogy of the approach. Maths is taught throughout the school using a range of strategies including whole class, group and paired work as well as individual teaching. We are developing the use of the outdoor class environment and ensure real life ‘hooks’ and purpose are embedded.

All children are catered for within the Mathematics lessons ensuring that the teacher offers the necessary support and challenge for each individual to make progress. We ensure that maths is taught in creative and engaging lessons using a variety of maths manipulatives and written methods to aid and support our children in their learning. Children work practically and are encouraged to use a large range of apparatus (numicon, counters, cubes, dienes etc) then record using pictures and record using more formal number sentences, and recall of mental fluency. Children are encouraged to persevere when challenges occur and develop their skill of resilience.

Mathematics is widely promoted across the school and our classrooms have working walls that the children can utilise to support their learning and provide extra challenge, this is being developed with a focus on reasoning.  Mathematical vocabulary and mathematical talk is an area we are developing, through mixed pairing and articulating their thinking through reasoning problems. Teachers challenge and extend the children’s understanding by asking them further challenging questions as they work. In EYFS, children’s understanding of mathematics develops through rich, child initiated play and first hand experiences and teacher focused activities which challenge and support mathematical learning, talking and thinking. We provide a mathematically rich environment, both indoors and outdoors where children are able to access resources independently all of the time.

Impact

The school has a supportive ethos and enables the children in developing their understanding and key skills in mathematics. Children can underperform in Mathematics and the mastery approach addresses these preconceptions by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success in Mathematics by developing a positive ‘can do’ attitude. Formative assessment takes place on a daily basis and teachers adjust planning accordingly to meet the needs of their class  and feedback is given to the children through marking and next step tasks to ensure they are meeting the specific learning objective.  Summative assessment takes place at the end of each term (using a combination of end of block assessments, NFER test and previous SATs papers (Year 2). The children’s progress and attainment is shared on our data package, where SLT can access and monitor achievement, as well as being discussed with senior leaders in pupil progress meetings. These regular and ongoing assessments 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 EYFS continuing to increase and KS1 well above the national average and a high proportion of children demonstrating greater depth. The teaching of mathematics is monitored by leaders through lesson observations, learning walks and book looks, we can be sure that progress is made across all year groups.

‘maths is the best because it’s challenging and fun’  Year 2 child.

‘we learn maths to help, so when I’m a grown up I can have a nice house and know how to spend money when shopping’ Year 2 child.

The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics.   Paul Halmos