INTENT

At St Gregory and St Patrick’s Catholic Infants School our intent for mathematics is to teach a rich, balanced and progressive curriculum using Maths to reason, problem solve and develop fluent conceptual understanding in each area. Teachers and governors are kept regularly informed of developments in our frequently reviewed curriculum. Teachers are supported and aided in their roles ensuring confidence in the skills and facts they are required to teach. Small step lessons are child focused and maths is kept fun and current in school. 

Our intent for our curriculum is to allow children to better make sense of the world around them relating the pattern between mathematics and everyday life. Our policies, resources and schemes support our vision.

The mapping of Mathematics across school shows clear progression in line with age related expectations. Pupils are challenged and we believe in a child led approach whereby pupils can take ownership of their learning, choosing their own level of task whilst those who are identified as SEND or underachieving are supported completely, revisiting learning where needed. 

Mathematics in our school is enhanced by our individual class working walls and STEM sentences designed to aid children through each topic.

NumBots: 

Every child at St Gregory and St Patrick's has a User ID for NumBots. It is a vibrant and engaging online learning platform for Maths. It is all about every child achieving the “triple win” of understanding, recall and fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so that they move from counting to calculating.

Knowledge Organisers

How to help at home:

IMPLEMENTATION

Subject expertise allows the intentions of our mathematics curriculum to be executed successfully. CPD is important in maths and all staff are being encouraged to raise any issues they have within mathematics in order to ensure everyone is confident in what they teach. Good practice is always shared between staff and all CPD is used to inform teaching and learning across school.

Key staff have attended training through the North West Maths Hub and there have been several staff meetings for professional development. Resources and equipment are audited and up to date and our resources allow us to better use models and images to support learning in each area. Children are familiar with these and able to access them independently, where needed, also supporting learning in different contexts. 

Staff have several materials to refer to for short-term planning and these are used across KS1 and in EYFS allowing children to be exposed to a variety of different types of learning and problems. Teachers also implement the schools agreed calculations policy for progression in written and mental calculations and curriculum map for progression in skills. Formative assessment is incredibly important at St Gregory and St Patrick’s where we focus on challenge questions (PUSH IT), analysis of learning, mini plenaries and discussion with peers. There is coherent progression seen in planning within each unit and activities in EYFS develop knowledge and skills of key learning.

Mathematical vocabulary is explicitly written within each year group’s weekly planning – this is discussed with children who are encouraged to use it independently. Children are given opportunity to reason and solve problems regularly; learning is varied and allows for deep and secure understanding. Identified ‘at risk of falling behind’ learners are given small group same day interventions, 1-2-1 and/or timetabled intervention in order to ensure every child is reaching their full mathematical potential. Our mini assessments are reviewed at the end of each block and target children are selected for further support. Parents are informed of and encouraged to be involved in our school mathematics implementation through newsletters, website updates, maths homework, parent’s meetings, parent’s evenings and yearly reports. Teachers are also all available for parents to speak to both before and after school. 

Teachers develop fluency through practicing key skills, repeating, reinforcing and revising which is all built into formal planning across the school. Children are given time to practice and perfect their calculation strategies including giving pupils opportunity to make appropriate decisions when estimating, calculating and evaluating the effectiveness of their chosen methods. Feedback including our whole class ‘next steps’ system is designed to ensure pupils are well informed and making visible progress. 

Discussion is essential to our learning and time is planned into lessons for this, task types are varied to suit different pupils and their learning preferences whilst reasoning in writing remains one of our key focuses. Investigative tasks are designed to allow pupils to follow lines of enquiry and develop their own ideas, justifying and proving their answers. Children work both collaboratively and independently solving problems, which require them to persevere and develop resilience. 

Our learning:

Useful Websites:

ictgames || html5 Home Page

Primary Games Arena - Fun Curriculum Games

Hit the Button - Quick fire maths practise for 6-11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk)

Maths Zone Cool Learning Games – Maths Games and Activties for Fun

Games - KS1 Maths - BBC Bitesize

Maths - Topmarks Search

Jack Hartmann Kids Music Channel - YouTube

IXL | Maths and English Practice

 IMPACT

The impact of our mathematics curriculum is that children understand the relevance of what they are learning in relation to real world concepts. We have fostered an environment where Maths is fun, and it is OK to be ‘wrong’ because the journey to finding an answer is most important. Our children have a growth mindset and they make measurable progression against their own targets. 

Our maths books are packed with a range of activities showing evidence of fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Our feedback and interventions are supporting children to strive to be the best mathematicians they can be ensuring a greater proportion of children are on track. 

Children ‘have a go’ and choose the equipment they need to help them to learn along with the strategies they think are best suited to each problem. Children are developing skills in being articulate and are able to verbally, pictorially and in written form reason well. 

1st Class @Number Intervention Programme:

Our specially trained teaching assistant delivers up to 30 half-hour sessions to a group of up to four children, for 10 -15 weeks. The children continue to take part in their normal class mathematics lessons.

The lessons focus on number and calculation, developing children’s mathematical understanding, communication and reasoning skills. Stimulating, enjoyable games and activities engage the children and build their confidence. Each topic starts with a simple assessment that helps the teaching assistant to tailor sessions to the children’s needs.

1^stClass@Number:

• provides targeted use of the Pupil Premium
• supports the National Curriculum for Mathematics
• raises mathematical attainment
• increases enjoyment and engagement in mathematics
• provides detailed evidence of progress and impact.

NCETM Mastering Number: 

The aims here is 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 over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Attention will be given to key knowledge and understanding needed in Reception classes, and progression through KS1 to support success in the future.

STEM Sentences:

Maths Oracy:

Think, Together, Share Strategy and actions:

Some children hesitate to speak up, not because they can’t answer the question, but because they haven’t worked out what to say. Our think, together, share strategy gives learners more time to think about their responses so they’re encouraged to participate. Our maths actions, means everyone can participate and language does not become a barrier. 

Sentence Repetition: 

Letting children repeat a correctly modelled sentence (or their own sentence that has been correctly remodelled) lets them practice oracy skills discreetly. Repetition also helps to embed learning and build maths confidence.

Asking several children to say the same sentence (usually when working with stem sentences) helps them embed the learning. Hearing the explanation several times from several different voices gives the other children in the class a chance to process the learning.

Prompts:

Instead of asking a closed or leading question, we use our maths actions and verbal prompts to help children to expand on an answer by saying something like “tell me more”, or “how did you get to that answer?”.

If they struggle they love to ‘phone a friend’ to help them explain their thinking  and practise articulating their answer.

Building on:

If one of or children wants to help a peer or add further explanation, we teach them to ‘build on’ what has just been said.

Instead of putting up hands, the ‘build on’ hand signal involves making fists and alternately hitting one on top of the other to indicate they wish to continue the current class discussion and add to what is being spoken about at the time.

They are also taught to start this with the stem sentence “I think______ because_______” to make sure the conversation is focussed and on the topic.

Learning Behaviours in Maths: coming soon .....

Calculation Policy: Coming soon......