Maths

At St Clement's we believe that maths is a skill we use on a daily basis, it is an essential part of everyday life. Therefore, mathematics forms an important part of our broad curriculum where we endeavour to ensure that children develop an enjoyment and enthusiasm for maths that will stay with them throughout their lives and empower them in future life. We believe that unlocking fluency in maths is an essential life skill for all learners. Our aim is to develop a positive culture of fluency, problem solving and reasoning. That builds confidence and competence in maths that therefore produces strong, secure learning. As a school, we recognise that the key to unlocking the potential in our children is through the development of basic mathematical skills and the understanding of mathematical concepts. We therefore place great emphasis on the use of concrete resources and pictorial representations at all ages, to enable children to fully understand the concepts and principals, when presented with abstract calculations and questions. Our maths curriculum is progressive; at KS2 it is designed to develop competencies to equip pupils for KS3 where they will build on KS2, make connections and solve increasingly sophisticated problems.

Intent

Our aims for all the children in Mathematics are:

• provides breadth and balance,
• relevant and engaging and is differentiated to match the needs and abilities of all our children to ensure that all pupils are able to excel.
• use the concrete-pictorial-approach as a means to developing a solid understanding of mathematical concepts
• apply a variety of contexts through reasoning and problem-solving challenges.
• Children receive a minimum of 5 hours maths tuition each week with additional sessions devoted to number proficiency and times tables.
• From Reception to Year 6, we adhere to our calculation policy which outlines the progression of strategies and methods to be taught
• Use the planning from White Rose small steps with the freedom to revise and reteach to enable more cohesive understanding.
• From Reception to Year 6, children follow the scheme of ‘White Rose’ which supports children in learning the fundamentals behind the meanings of numbers and exploring other key mathematical areas.
• Our maths curriculum is also supported through the implementation of resources from White Rose and teacher made resources
• The use of small steps to break down the teaching sequence into small achievable steps.
• Where children require additional support, ‘scaffolds’ are used to support children further to ensure that they have secured the small step before moving on. These ‘scaffolds’ may be in the form of returning to concrete resources or pictorial representations.
• For children who understand a concept quicker, challenges are used to deepen and challenge learners further within the curriculum area. These are evident in children’s books.
• Marking follows the school’s policy.
• Progression documents such as our calculation policy are carefully used to ensure that children are not being stretched outside their year group but rather deepened within it.
• Within daily teaching, children will be reminded/taught fact sentences linked to previous/current learning which will constantly be referred to within the lesson.
• Daily assessment is incorporated throughout the lesson through live and verbal feedback. Where children require additional support, ‘Closing the Gaps’ are used to support children ensuring that they are ready for the next ‘small step’.
• Termly assessments are used as a diagnostic tool to ensure that teachers are adapting learning to meet the needs of all children and ensure that any necessary interventions are targeted specifically to meet the needs of children.
• Times tables play an important part in our maths learning, with children developing their fluency in rapid recall of tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4. While the rapid recall of times tables is being developed, children are also learning how to apply and manipulate their understanding of this to reason and solve problems. Children from Y1 – Y6 have the opportunity to consolidate and apply their times tables knowledge by using Times Table Rock Stars both at home and in school.
• By the end of Year 6, transitioning to secondary school, we aspire children will have developed a bank of efficient and accurate skills that can be used to calculate and reason effectively.

Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Aspects of the Mathematics Curriculum

 Spiritual: 

                 Developing deep thinking and questioning the way in which the world works promotes the spiritual growth of students. In Maths lessons pupils are always      encouraged to delve deeper into their understanding of Mathematics and how it relates to the world around them. The skills of analysing data are taught                         from Year 9 to Year 11 to enable students to make sense of vast amounts of data available in the modern world around them. Sequences, patterns,                              measures and ultimately the entire study of Mathematics was created to make more sense of the world around us and we enable each of our students                                     to use Maths as a tool to explore it more fully.

Moral: 

The moral development of pupils is an important thread running through the entire mathematics syllabus. Pupils are taught to be aware of the                                                                  use and misuse of data. Examples of Moral lessons in maths:

1. Pupils conducting an opinion survey on a moral issue.  
2. Learning about world trade during Maths Week.

Social: 

Problem solving skills and teamwork are fundamental to Mathematics, through creative thinking, discussion, explaining and presenting ideas. Students                                 are always encouraged to develop their Mathematical reasoning skills, communicating with others and explaining concepts to each other. Self and                                    peer reviewing are very important to enable pupils to have an accurate grasp of where they are and how they need to improve. Working together                                              in pairs or groups and supporting others is a key part of Maths lessons.

Cultural: 

Mathematics is a universal language with a myriad of cultural inputs throughout the ages. At Stonehenge we encourage the teaching of various                                   approaches to Mathematics including the Chinese lattice method for multiplication. The ability to use exchange rates for foreign travel are also                                     important life skills students will learn. Examples of Cultural lessons in maths:

1. Pupils investigating different number sequences and where they occur in the real world
2. Allowing discussion on the cultural and historical roots of mathematics, such Pythagoras’ theorem .       
3. Pupils discussing the use of mathematics in cultural symbols and patterns
4. Mathematics is a universal language
5. Use of the Chinese lattice method when teaching multiplication

 Pedagogical Approach

Metacognition

Adapted from:  EEF METACOGNITION AND SELF-REGULATED LEARNING—Guidance Report EEF_Metacognition_and_self-regulated_learning.pdf (d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net)

Teaching Process

In terms of developing self-regulated learning and metacognition, this means we need to make sure that we don’t give too much information at the same time (when delivering explicit instruction), and do not expect the learner to take on too much challenge when doing guided practice and independent work. The use of structured planning templates, teacher modelling, worked examples, and breaking down activities into steps can help achieve this.

Self-regulation and metacognition strategies work through learners monitoring and evaluating their own learning strategies.

• Explicit teaching
• Teachers modelling
• Opportunities for pupils to reflect on and monitor their strengths and areas of improvement, and plan how to overcome current difficulties.
• Providing enough challenge for learners to develop effective strategies, but not so difficult that they struggle to apply a strategy.

Self-regulated learning can be broken into three essential components that teachers need to know about to help their pupils to develop into successful learners:

Cognition is the mental process involved in knowing, understanding, and learning. By cognitive strategies, we mean skills like memorisation techniques or subject-specific strategies like solving calculations. This is the bread and butter of good teaching; cognitive strategies are fundamental to acquiring knowledge and completing learning tasks.

Metacognition is about the way’s learners monitor and purposefully direct their learning. For example, having decided that a particular cognitive strategy for creating is likely to be successful, a pupil then monitors whether it has indeed been successful and then deliberately changes (or not) their method based on that evidence. By metacognitive strategies, we mean the strategies we use to monitor or control our cognition, such as checking that our technique was accurate or selecting the most appropriate cognitive strategy for the task we are undertaking.

Motivation is about our willingness to engage our metacognitive and cognitive skills and apply them to learning. Motivational strategies will include convincing oneself to undertake a tricky task now—affecting our current well-being—as a way of improving our future well-being in the task tomorrow. Cognition, metacognition, and motivation all interact in complex ways during the learning process. It is impossible to be metacognitive without having different cognitive strategies to hand and possessing the motivation and perseverance to tackle problems and apply these strategies.  

Calculation Policy 2024 - White Rose Maths