Maths

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Our intent

At St. Luke’s we aim to provide every child with a high quality mathematics education. We seek to encourage a love and curiosity for the subject by developing the essential skills and knowledge that they need to be able to understand the subject in depth.

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The National Curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all children:

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that children have conceptual understanding and are able to recall and apply their knowledge rapidly and accurately

• Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language

• Can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

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We follow the White Rose programme, which is a detailed scheme of learning which effectively incorporates fluency, reasoning and problem solving, meeting the expectations of the National Curriculum. The programme is effectively sequenced so as to allow for a clear progression in the skills that children develop as they progress through the school, whilst also promoting a real depth of learning within each topic area.

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In Reception and KS1, teaching and learning of key maths skills and fluency is supported is supported through the DfE accredited NCETM Mastering Number programme. This project aims to secure firm foundations of number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 and begin KS2 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Research shows that children with secure ‘number sense’ early on will make more progress later on in Maths and across the curriculum.  

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At St. Luke’s our expectation is that children of all abilities should be challenged through being offered a range of rich and sophisticated problems, which deepens their understanding of a concept, before acceleration through new content. The White Rose programme promotes the use of concrete, pictorial and abstract representations for children of all abilities, and of all ages, which we believe supports the accessibility of the curriculum for the vast majority of children.

Over time, through this high quality mathematics teaching, we aim to develop happy and resilient mathematicians, who are independent thinkers that relish the challenges of the subject.

 

Planning and Delivery

Teachers plan mathematics on a weekly basis, following the overviews provided by White Rose. The expectation is that the vast majority of children will move through the curriculum at broadly the same pace, with carefully differentiated work enabling children of differing abilities to access the content at the correct level for them.

 

We encourage teachers to use a range of resources and strategies to support the teaching and learning of each unit of work, to allow children to experience variety in the type of work that they do, and to tackle different types of reasoning and problem solving tasks. Our Written Calculation Policy gives a clear summary of the methods children are learning in school; you can use this to support your children with their maths homework.

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At St Luke's we have broken down the White Rose curriculum into components and end points so we know what all of our children are learning at each point in the academic year. Please click on the link to see the full document.

Whole School Maths Overview

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Our Maths Progression Document summarises the most important knowledge and understanding within each year group and makes connections between these topics as the children progress from Year 1 to Year 6.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assessment in mathematics

We have three summative assessment points across the year in mathematics: at the end of the autumn term, the spring term and the summer term. Teachers produce data for each child which reflects the level they are working at against the National Curriculum expectations.

 

The judgements that teachers make are weighted towards teacher assessment, through the evidence in children’s books and the teacher’s ongoing understanding of each child. However, this is also supported by end of term tests, also produced by White Rose, which reflect the content of the term’s learning. There is one arithmetic paper, and one reasoning and problem solving paper.

This data is submitted to the maths subject leader and the Senior Leadership Team. The data is discussed with teachers at the termly pupil progress meetings, where the needs of different children are discussed and arrangements put into place to further support their learning, as is appropriate.

This sits alongside the ongoing formative assessment that teachers make through working with children on a daily basis in their lessons, and through the marking of their work.

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Monitoring of mathematics

The maths subject leader and SLT will monitor the teaching and learning of maths in line with reference to the school improvement plan, and the expectations of our curriculum intent. Monitoring will take place in the following ways:

· Termly book scrutinies alongside informal book looks

· Planning scrutinies

· Lesson observations

 

The maths subject leader/SLT will lead on the dissemination of good practice in the subject through leading INSET, modelling sessions and co-teaching sessions and supporting with teacher’s planning and subject knowledge.

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Continued Professional Development

The maths subject leader leads on the CPD for the subject, based on the needs of individual teachers, and wider school priorities.

 

The White Rose programme was formally introduced in the 2019.20 academic year, as a whole school scheme of learning. As such, whole staff INSET was provided by the subject leader at the beginning of the academic year to set the expectations for the implementation of the programme.

 

Furthermore, the maths subject leader provided individual planning support for all teachers at the beginning of the term. This sat alongside the support that the maths advisor for the local authority provided, who also worked with teachers on an individual basis.

 

Our monitoring and evaluation schedule provides an overview of the maths staff meetings, which develop teachers’ professional subject knowledge.

 

At St. Luke’s we work closely with the maths advisor for the local authority. She has led on a number of staff meetings to develop teachers’ understanding of reasoning. She also works with the subject leader to support individual teachers with planning, and to ensure that the high expectations that we have of the implementation of the White Rose scheme of learning are being met.

 

Teachers will also attend local authority training pertinent to their year group, or key stage, to ensure that they receive high quality input to then implement into their own practice.

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Special Education Needs provision

Teachers will plan activities according to the needs and abilities within the class, differentiating for the more able and the less able appropriately. The needs of children on the SEN register will be accounted for and appropriate to their IEPs, with reference to the SEN policy. Teachers must ensure that a child’s barriers to learning impact upon them being able to achieve the best possible outcome in mathematics.

 

The Recovery Curriculum

During both national lockdowns, and periods of remote learning due to bubble closures, teachers continued to deliver daily mathematics lessons remotely, offering teaching, support and feedback to all pupils. Where possible and practical, teachers continued to follow the White Rose programme as planned so as to ensure continuity of the curriculum. However, we recognise that delivering content remotely is not as effective as in-class teaching in supporting pupil’s learning and progress. As such, in consultation with the maths advisor from the local authority, we strategically reviewed and modified the curriculum when the children returned to school in March 2021, focusing on the Ready to Progress objectives, to support children in being able to make the progress needed to meet the expected levels at the end of the academic year.