Intent

At St Ann’s Heath, our overall aim is to equip all of our pupils with the life skills they need to be able to flourish in the real world and promote a love of maths.  We aim to ensure that, regardless of background and ability, every child has a rich and meaningful mathematics education.  We set high expectations for all pupils and do whatever possible to see that these expectations are met. Both staff and pupils understand the importance of automaticity and fluency within maths and this is taught through real life contexts to enable pupils to apply their understanding, reasoning and problem-solving skills and to make connections across the subject and wider curriculum. 

Implementation

Curriculum

As a school we use White Rose Maths as a Scheme of Work to timetable mathematical blocks that are explored progressively, drawing on resources, data and suggestions from reliable sources such as NCETM, Numberstacks, Deepening Understanding and Nrich to link mathematical talk and knowledge across the various units (e.g. multiplication and area).  This is designed to spark curiosity and excitement and help children develop confidence in maths. Each maths unit is built upon as they progress through the school.

Teaching sequences are based on small steps to ensure a good level of coherence, understanding, application of understanding and transference of skills to a range of problems and contexts.

White Rose is tailored to suit our children’s needs by adding in extra consolidation where needed and appropriate challenges for our most able.

Overall, we believe maths should be seen as fun and approached with a positive mindset.

Lessons

We teach maths for approximately one hour per day and the lesson is based on the principle that all children can achieve.  Children are sat in mixed ability pairs with access to the same learning.  This way the children are exposed to the same content and offered the same opportunities, rather than placing a cap on the children’s learning.  Tasks are provided to enrich and stretch this learning in the form of challenges for the greater depth pupils.  Those who may need extra support receive additional support through maths manipulatives and attending maths support groups such as preteach, Success at Arithmetic or Numberstacks interventions.  

• Each lesson begins with a revisit of previous learning in the form of a flashback 4 (something from last year, last month, last week and the last lesson).  This enables the pupils to exercise their working memory and to better retain facts taught previously.
• Lessons are taught in the form of small steps and a ping pong style lesson.  There are opportunities for guided practice and independent practice and concrete materials are always on hand for pupils to use. Manipulatives are stored in a central location so that everyone can access them: interlocking cubes, 3D shapes, Numicon, etc.  Every classroom has its own supply of PV counters, dice, dienes, Cuisenaire and Numicon. Manipulatives help the children, teachers and LSAs to interact and move to represent mathematical ideas. 
• Independent tasks are explained and pupils complete their work.  The tasks are high ceiling low entry, so that everyone can access the first questions, which then get progressively harder, and then go as far as they can, completing Greater Depth challenges if they can.
• Children are encouraged to represent their work in different ways.  Representations include informal drawings, mathematical symbols, diagrams, bar models, part part whole models, arrays; they draw these to help visualise the question and break it into manageable steps.
• Teachers provide live marking to allow immediate feedback and support where required.  Children are encouraged to selfmark where appropriate and are expected to correct their mistakes which is shown in green pen.
• LSAs do not sit with a group or specific children as we aim to ensure that all of the children develop independence.
• Plenaries are an opportunity for the children to demonstrate their reasoning and problem solving skills.
• We encourage the children to use Numbots and TT Rockstars to help them to secure their number knowledge and times tables skills.  In year 6, further quiz style questions include Numeracy Ninjas, Barvember and the opportunities to enter competitions.
• Teachers are provided with the latest methods, resources, and opportunities to attend extra CPD training to enhance their planning and preparation.

Assessment

Staff assess daily and provide immediate feedback to move learning forwards.

End of block assessments are carried out from the White Rose scheme and these results help us to inform future planning or the need for extra consolidation amongst specific children. NFER termly assessments are used to help us to track the children’s progress.  These results are inputted on NFER assessment tool.  Our formative and summative assessment are used to update the children’s levels on our assessment matrices, parents evening notes and end of year reports

Teachers are expected to complete training for understanding and implementing the CPA (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract) approach for the teaching concepts and consistently identify and address (with SLT or peers) areas for development by creating a route to become confident in this particular subject area.

Extra opportunities

Morning starters are often maths based and the children are expected to complete maths homework when it is set.  In year 5 and 6, this is every week.  Twice a week, times tables tests are held and the children are encouraged to go on TT Rockstars for 15 minutes per day.

Some pupils may receive extra support to try to catch up and fill gaps from previously missed learning (e.g. preteach, Success at Arithmetic or Numberstacks).