Maths
St Michael’s Primary school aims to enable its learners to be confident mathematicians. We want our young mathematicians to be able to solve problems, reason about mathematical concepts and apply their mathematical skills fluently in a variety of contexts. In order to do this, we teach the National Curriculum Programme of study which covers:
- Knowing and using number
- Adding and Subtracting
- Multiplying and Dividing
- Using fractions
- Using measures
- Using geometry
- Using statistics
Successful teaching of Mixed age classes
We use White Rose planning and resources to organise teaching. Along side these documents, from Year 2 learners use Power Maths textbooks. These are designed to develop opprtunities for indepenedent practice. Within a lesson learners in one year group can independently practice maths knowledge and skills after having teacher input. This means the other year group in a class can have detailed teacher support particularly when learning new content.
A Mastery Approach to Maths
St Michael’s, we work with the Sussex Maths Hub and we have developed a Mastery Approach to Maths.
Teaching for Mastery in Maths is essentially the expectation that all pupils will gain a deep understanding of the maths they are learning.
A mastery approach to the curriculum means pupils spend far longer on fewer key mathematical concepts whilst working at greater depth. Long term gaps in learning are prevented through speedy teacher intervention and those children who grasp the concepts more quickly are given opportunities to deepen their knowledge and improve their reasoning skills rather than accelerating on to new curriculum content.
We carefully plan our maths teaching using a Concrete Pictorial Abstract (CPA) approach. This is a system of learning that uses physical and visual aids to build a child’s understanding of abstract topics.
Pupils are introduced to a new mathematical concept through the use of concrete resources (e.g., fruit, Dienes blocks etc). When they are comfortable solving problems with physical equipment, they are given problems with pictures – usually pictorial representations of the concrete objects they were using.
Then they are asked to solve problems where they only have the abstract i.e. numbers or other symbols. Building these steps across a lesson can help pupils better understand the relationship between numbers and the real world, and therefore helps secure their understanding of the mathematical concept they are learning.
Some of the ways we develop this are demonstrated in our Calculation Policy.