Maths - learning journey
intent
When teaching Mathematics at Barry Primary School, we intend to provide a curriculum which caters for the needs of all individuals and sets them up with the necessary skills and knowledge for them to become successful in their future adventures. We aim to prepare them for a positive working life. We incorporate sustained levels of challenge through varied and high-quality activities with a focus on fluency, reasoning and problem solving.
We intend for our children to explore Maths in depth, using mathematical vocabulary to reason and explain their workings as well as stem sentence to broaden their understanding. Our expectation is for them to explain their choice of methods and develop their mathematical reasoning skills. We encourage resilience, adaptability and acceptance that struggle is often a necessary step in learning. At Barry, the curriculum allows children to better make sense of the world around them relating the pattern between mathematics and everyday life.
implementation
At Barry Primary School, we use White Rose to implement our curriculum through the CPA (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract) approach. Children have the opportunity to use concrete resources and are taught to apply these methods to pictorial and abstract problems. We follow a Teaching for Mastery curriculum and believe that high expectations are crucial – teachers believe that all children can achieve regardless of ability. This involves carefully planned, small, coherent steps that are achievable.
We differentiate through depth rather than accelerating through content, encouraging our pupils to access challenges at their level when working independently, as well as when being supported in order to achieve their full potential. Our children are required to reason mathematically and are offered opportunities to work on key ideas and learning that encourages intelligent practice. This is fostered by drawing children’s attention to important features and structures of Mathematics and by making connections through lessons that incorporate procedural variation (by varying numbers or unknowns, strategies or problems) and conceptual variation (by varying the representations given to support children’s understanding).
impact
Children become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication. Outcomes in books, Seesaw and the working wall evidence a opportunities for mathematical thinking in a fun and engaging way. Maths is assessed through a combination of Star assessments, teacher judgements and Whiterose end of unit assessment.
Creativity
Maths allows our learners to prompt investigations and problem-solving skills through patterns. Our curriculum provides opportunities for mathematical thinking through all four aspects of mathematical learning.
Aspiration
Maths will inform children about the world in which they live and concepts they will see and apply throughout everyday life. Our ambition is to inspire our pupils to become strong, mathematical thinkers.
Respect
Understanding the wider world will allow children to gain respect for the value of the concept of number including: money, time and units of measurement.
Enjoyment
Enjoyment is found in Maths through perseverance and growth in confidence enabling you to finally solve a problem which initially seemed impossible, keeping learning exciting. The challenge in Maths is unexpected and something children can look forward to.