Intent
At St Paul’s Way Foundation School, we believe that high quality mathematics provision is essential as a tool for life and in understanding the wider world. We aim to inspire a love of learning and sense of empowerment in all our pupils. Our demographic is diverse; our pupils have a wide range of different backgrounds, cultural and life experiences. We are committed to a transformative education for all and have adopted a mastery approach to ensure attainment in maths for everyone. The mastery approach fosters growth mindset and resilience in pupils as it advocates progress and attainment for all.
The 2014 National Curriculum states that all pupils should become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, reason mathematically and solve problems by applying their learning to a variety of problems. At SPWF, these three elements are present in all lessons. In addition to providing students with a solid understanding of mathematical concepts, teachers promote explicit understanding of the relationship between different areas through carefully designed maths lessons and, on a broader level, through cross-curricular links with other subjects.
In Early Years, children come with differing understanding of number. We emphasise maths in the real world through stories, games, exploration and focused activities that hone in on the objectives identified in Development Matters. By the end of KS2, we aim for children to be fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics with a conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. They should have the skills to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of situations with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios. Children will be able to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.
Key curriculum areas:
At SPWP, our curriculum makes use of a range of resources drawn from sources such as NCETM, Power Maths & Whiterose, which are then tailored to meet the curriculum goals by following the five main ideas in teaching Maths Mastery:
|
Coherence |
Our curriculum is carefully sequenced to enable pupils to make connections and use prior knowledge to develop and deep and broad understanding of mathematical concepts. |
|
Representation and Structure |
Teachers work to carefully select representations that bring to light the wider structure of mathematical concepts over wrote memorization of facts. In this way, pupils ‘see’ maths rather than memorizing a method of solving a problem. |
|
Mathematical Thinking |
Our curriculum design includes a focus on patterns and relationships at every point, further supporting pupils in making connections across concepts and develop a wider sense of mathematics. |
|
Fluency |
Enabling all of the other components of a successful maths curriculum, fluency is embedded to ensure rapid and accurate recall of key mathematical facts. At SPWP, we take this one step further and make use of the concepts, relationships and contexts with in the curriculum and challenge children to develop a range of skills or strategies to solve problems therein. |
|
Variation |
The final, and one of the most important aspects maths mastery that we use at SPWP, is drawing attention to the key features of a concept or structure by varying some elements. Through conceptual variation, we change how the concept is displayed to draw attention to key features while keeping others consistent so that children can gain a comprehensive understanding. Through procedural variation we encourage children to assess how the ‘proceed’ through a problem- encouraging them to reason logically and make connections. |
Implementation
Our curriculum is implemented in several layers that allow teachers to modify different aspects to suit the needs of the children throughout each unit. At simplest level, our curriculum sequencing follows the Power Maths/Whiterose approach to allow for topics to be taught in an order that is research informed and proven to help develop coherence. Teachers may adjust the methods or approaches used to teach a concept, and ensure children develop a strong conceptual understanding of the topic before moving on to the next.
Within individual lessons, the structure follows research-informed practice that focuses on: first allowing children to explore a topic and recall their understanding. This is then followed by direct and effective teaching/modelling by the teacher, wherein pupils are encouraged to discuss and evaluate their understanding of the learning objective. Following this, pupils receive carefully scaffolded practice that allows them to build experience and confidence with the teacher before moving on to independent work. Once the teacher is confident that children understand the topic at hand pupils are given time to demonstrate their independent learning. Each lesson is finished with a class discussion or reflection that challenges all pupils to apply their understanding in an abstract way.
Teachers use assessment for learning principles at every juncture of a lesson to ensure that pupils receive regular feedback before misconceptions arise. This can be in the form of written or verbal feedback and can include modelling to support pupil understanding. In addition to this, pupils are supported in developing coherence through the use of a range of manipulatives to demonstration variation during the practice portion of the lesson. The final portion of the lesson allows for teachers to assess pupil understanding and make use of this information for the next lesson.
Curriculum implementation can be seen across our maths working walls, pupil jotters and Power Maths books. By having two books to work from, pupils are able to capitalise on the resources provided by schemes and teachers are able to augment these resources and offer challenges beyond the scheme resources. Regular drop-ins and evaluations of pupil work ensures a high standard of quality across our provision while regular coaching and professional development ensures that our teachers and staff are on the forefront of subject knowledge.
While ongoing assessments in maths are caried out daily to support teaching and learning, more formative methods of assessment are used to triangulate pupil progress. This can include standardized measures such as KS1/KS2 SATs, year 4 multiplication testing, EYFS baseline assessments & NFER assessments.
