Maths at Huish

“Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and
necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment.”

(National Curriculum 2014)

At Huish Primary School we aim to provide children with a rich and balanced maths curriculum.

Thorough teaching of the National Curriculum’s three strands of Fluency, Reasoning and Problem Solving, ensures:

• children know and understand key mathematical facts and methods and can recall these efficiently;
• children can effectively use their mathematical skills and understanding;
• children can make links with maths to practical and real-life situations.

Our high-quality teaching encourages our children to be mathematically confident and to share an enjoyment for this subject. Children at Huish are taught the fundamentals of maths, enabling them to make connections, to see the application of maths in other subjects and to see the value of mathematics in everyday life. We believe that positive attitudes and high expectations inspire children to achieve high standards.

At our school, we predominately embed the Mastery approach using the White Rose Maths programme. More recently, to help ensure quality first teaching, we have reviewed our long-term scheme of work to include the Ready To Progress Criteria and ensure it meets the needs of our children.  This overview will be adapted each year according to the ability of the children, where appropriate.  Our new overviews show the coverage of each year group while the curriculum progression gives an idea of the expectations of children within that year group and mathematical area.

 The basic principles of our maths curriculum are:

• To develop conceptual understanding by using models, pictorials and concrete resources so that children understand the abstract mathematical concepts that they are learning.
• To utilize relationships between concepts and procedures to develop efficiency.
• To develop mathematical language to support learning and the ability to reason and justify.
• To apply mathematical understanding to problem solving by breaking down problems into small steps and persevering in seeking solutions using a range of strategies.
• To develop resilient children who are confident and enthused about mathematics
• To provide ‘purposeful maths’ linked to the world around them.

Teaching and learning
In our school, Mathematics is taught through three main strands: Varied Fluency, Reasoning and Problem Solving. Our teachers ensure effective learning through the use of the Concrete/Pictorial/Abstract approach. Wherever possible, mathematics draws upon real-life situations, and, according to their age and ability, the children will cover calculation strategies (including times tables), money, fractions, percentages, measure, geometry (shape, space and position), statistics (handling data).

Stem sentences are used to aid understanding and retention of key knowledge and feedback journals are used to give children support that aids progress.

Basic skills lessons are taught with the aim for children to calculate quickly and accurately, using and choosing efficient strategies, whether these are written or mental.  KS1 are currently following the Mastering Number project which aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The aim is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. In KS2, basic skills time is devoted to teaching strategies and supporting children in making connections between their known facts and mental calculations. Coverage checkers are used to ensure breadth and variation of calculations and mental methods or strategies.

Mathematics in Our Early Years Reception Classes

Huish Primary School is an early adopter of the new Early Years framework. This has been broken down into Number and Numerical Patterns. There are three Early Learning Goals for each, these are: Number: Have a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number; Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5; Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.

Numerical Patterns: Verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system; Compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity; Explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, double facts and how quantities can be distributed equally.

The maths curriculum has been designed in a logical way using the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) to enable every child the opportunity to deepen their mathematical understanding and achieve the ELGs by the end of Reception. We have chosen to use the Development Matters document to support the children meet the ELGs. 

Home Learning
We believe that home learning can support and consolidate maths learning. Home learning is used as an opportunity for children to ‘revisit’ previously taught concepts. To embed the retention of learning, teachers leave a gap between point of teaching and the time children practise at home. Support from home is key to enabling children to develop a sense of number and learn facts such as times tables, number bonds and use maths in real-life context such as playing board games, dealing with money, cooking and problem solving.

Impact
Our overriding aim at Huish, is that the children in our school, will have developed the knowledge, skills and understanding to help them be successful in today’s world. The children will have developed a good number sense where they enjoy exploring numbers and solving problems.  This will support their next steps in their learning journey, equip them with skills to grasp new opportunities and fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum. We will see that a mathematical concept or skill has been mastered when a child can show it in multiple ways, using the mathematical language to explain their ideas, and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations. As a school, we continually look for ways to improve our teaching of mathematics and support the children in becoming confident, resilient, curious mathematicians.