Curriculum – Maths
Intent
At Oakley Cross Primary School our maths curriculum revolves around the aims of 2014 National Curriculum for Maths which aims to ensure that all children:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics
- Are able to reason mathematically
- Can solve problems by applying their Mathematics
These skills are embedded within Maths lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are also able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. It is our intent that children develop their strong number sense so that as their confidence grows, they will be able to look for patterns, manipulate numbers to make calculations easier, work out calculations mentally, use logical reasoning, suggest solutions and enjoy playing with and exploring numbers. We intend to expose children to a wide range of concrete resources to support their mathematical understanding before modelling the use of pictorial representations. By having this strong foundation, it is our intent that children are then confident in using abstract representations.
Implementation
The content and principles underpinning the Maths curriculum at Oakley Cross Primary School will encourage and model resilience and determination.
- Teachers will reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Maths.
- The large majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace.
Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support and intervention.
- Teaching is underpinned by methodical curriculum design and supported by carefully crafted lessons and resources to foster deep conceptual and procedural knowledge.
- Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts.
Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess children regularly to identify those requiring intervention, so that all children keep up. The teaching sequence will begin by introducing new concepts through problems, real life examples and fluency questions. Children will gain the knowledge and skills through a variety of activities, both practical and written which systematically build upon prior knowledge. The class teacher then leads children through strategies for solving the problem, including those already discussed. Independent work provides the means for all children to develop their fluency further, before progressing to more complex related problems.
Maths is taught daily through the main lesson and a morning maths skills session on arrival to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Each lesson phase provides the means to achieve greater depth, with more able children being offered rich and sophisticated problems, as well as exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate.
Impact
Our Maths curriculum gives all children the opportunity to develop a love of maths by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success. Children’s skills will have progressed to enable them to not only have met the requirements of the National Curriculum but to also have a developed a good number sense where they enjoy exploring numbers and solving problems. We will see that a mathematical concept or skill has been mastered when a child can show it in multiple ways, using the mathematical language to explain their ideas, and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations.
Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child. These factors ensure that we are able to maintain high standards, with achievement at the end of KS2 above the national average and a high proportion of children demonstrating greater depth, at the end of each phase. Regular arithmetic tests, times table tracking and end of term summative tests will enable teachers to track cohort progress and inform future planning.