Maths
Subject leader - Miss C.O'Neill
Subject Champions - Henry B (yr3), Ollie P (yr4), Lucas Jr E (yr5), Chloe B (yr6)
Intent
At Kempshott Junior School, we teach to the National Curriculum expectations, but also aim to inspire children to foster a love for mathematics and recognise the importance of mathematics today and in their future lives. We want children to appreciate that mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment.
We want all children to achieve within mathematics and continue to further develop their curiosity and wonder of the subject both within school and beyond. We are committed to ensuring that all children are able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of contexts.
Implementation
Maths is taught with a focus on mastery teaching, encompassing three main dimensions for depth: conceptual understanding, mathematical thinking and mathematical language, with reasoning and problem solving at the heart of our curriculum.
Our curriculum follow the Hampshire scheme of work which enables pupils to make links within and across domains of learning.
We teach mathematics daily through real-life contexts and problems where possible. Mathematics is interactive and involves hands-on learning. This is achieved through a mastery approach to teaching, where children are encouraged to use a range of resources and representations to develop their conceptual understanding, which will support the development of procedural fluency. Teachers aim to use a task variation approach in order to allow pupils to deepen their understanding of a wide range of problems.
When planning and designing lessons, careful consideration is made to the way that the mathematical structures and concepts can be represented to support children’s understanding. Children are encouraged to think mathematically through completing tasks which involve variation to draw out children’s understanding and to support with making connections. Common misconceptions are planned for and modelled to challenge children’s thinking. Children become fluent in their number facts by chanting these and playing games, as well as looking at the connections, sequences and patterns to support their conceptual understanding. This way, learning is embedded and retained overtime.
Children are taught together in mixed ability classes to support all children to achieve. The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the school’s programme of study at broadly the same pace. However, teachers use their assessments to decide when it is appropriate for children in their class to progress. Scaffolding and additional support is provided for children who may be struggling to grasp a concept, which may include differentiated work, additional resources or pre-teach and closing the gap interventions. More able children are challenged to think more deeply about the concepts and apply them to unfamiliar contexts. This supports children to develop their mathematical thinking and language alongside each other, with children of all abilities challenged to reason and think deeply.
Impact
During each lesson, formative assessment takes place and feedback is given both throughout the lesson and when reviewing books. Where appropriate, next steps and misconceptions will be addressed through verbal and written feedback, although this will often be built into the next lesson so children have the opportunity to practice and apply the skills. Staff constantly use their assessments to inform planning to enable all children to progress. All staff use starter questions to revise key concepts taught: last lesson; last week; last month; last term and to check how well learning has been embedded over time.
At the end of each milestone, a summative teacher assessment is made and data is analysed to support with adaptation of planning and intervention. The end of the academic year sees children sit end of year group papers to monitor children’s standardised scores and to support with measuring progress and impact. Year 6 children will sit the end of key stage two statutory assessments and they will have an opportunity to practice these and monitor their progress prior to the test.
The teaching of mathematics is also monitored regularly, at least half termly, through the data, book and planning monitoring, learning walks or observations. This information is used to identify strengths and areas for development. From this, an action plan is drawn to support with any areas for development.
Curriculum Overviews
Progression Overviews
Progression in mental calculation Curriculum Progression
Click below to find out more about what we like about maths.
Useful Links
Sequenced programme of times tables practise. Children have personalised logins for this resource. | Hosts links to lots of interactive games & resources | Lots of magical maths games for all age groups and maths topics. Ideas for practical games to ensure 'screen-free' time. |
All curriculum areas covered here with great videos & animations | Suitable for KS1 and KS2 | No two numbers the same in each row or column or small rectangle. Some seem a little tricky, just give it a minute and use your logical problem-solving skills to help |