At St. Clare’s we aim to build happy, confident and resilient mathematicians, with every pupil believing that by working hard at maths, they can succeed.
The National Curriculum for Mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they can develop their conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
- Reason mathematically, including being able to develop an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
- Solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems, including breaking them down into a series of smaller steps, and persevering in seeking solutions.
At St. Clare’s, we follow the White Rose Scheme of Learning. Many of the principles of mastery underpin this scheme and our teaching. A whole class teaching approach is adopted, keeping the class working together and giving all pupils the chance to work on fluency, reasoning and problem solving tasks. Support for all learners is achieved through various forms of scaffolding. This may include but is not limited to; the degree of adult support provided, asking enabling and extending questions and the use of concrete, pictorial and abstract resources. Pupils who are struggling to grasp a concept or procedure are identified quickly and intervention (either same day, or longer-term support) is put in place, ensuring they are ready to move forward with the rest of the class. At the same time, opportunities are also provided for all pupils to revisit and reinforce learning, including key concepts from previous years, to help them truly develop their understanding and mastery.– we identify gaps through the review and kite and these are addressed in the lesson before continuing. They will then be checked again each day until the children are confident. This is in the moment assessment which, whilst continuing the unit learning, allows for key GAPs to recognised and addressed.
In our EYFS classes, pupils work towards the Early Learning Goals for Number and Numerical Patterns. The White Rose materials are used to support teaching where appropriate, and built into the unique pedagogy of the EYFS. The steps guidance is used to guide and structure the mathematical continuous provision. This is continuous provision that reflects ongoing learning and consolidation of previous learning for example formation of numbers, counting and sorting activities, number matching both inside and outside.
The Key Stage One and Key Stage Two curriculum focuses on four areas across the course of the year: number, measurement, geometry and statistics. Initially, in each year, the emphasis is on number skills with concepts carefully structured to enable pupils to constantly build upon and make links with their prior learning.
Each unit starts with a ‘cold task’: a pre-assessment to identify gaps in pupils’ prior knowledge, as well as their strengths. This allows planning to be adjusted to meet pupils’ and classes’ individual needs. – At St. Clare’s this is done by teachers once the cold task is completed whereby the gaps are looked at and lessons to address these will either come before the unit teaching or before the relevant objective through the unit to ensure that the children can access and succeed with the new learning. These are based on the previous year’s understanding to ensure children are not proceeding into a new unit with gaps in their understanding. Each lesson begins with a review of their prior understanding, using the White Rose Flashback 4 to cover a range of topics in each lesson. Following this the children undertake a kite activity that introduces ideas that will be used during the lesson and makes links to the previous lesson. Then the teacher models the objective. This is followed by opportunities to discuss, practise and observe the method and operation(s). The teacher will model all the methods and vocabulary clearly; this is then displayed on the working wall for pupils to refer to. Following this, pupils access fluency, reasoning and problem solving tasks, giving the children the chance to explore the concept being taught in depth, before moving onto the next one. Children are exposed to multiple representations of a concept, using concrete, pictorial and abstract representations to support the children’s understanding. The lesson finishes with a review which gives the pupils and teacher chance to assess their learning during the lesson and identify their next steps. Each unit of work finishes with a ‘hot task’ allowing children to demonstrate their progress over the unit of work.
Mathematical talk is a crucial component of lessons at St. Clare’s. Lessons include regular opportunities for the children to discuss their understanding and explain their thinking, both with adults and with peers. Accurate use of vocabulary is crucial, modelled by teachers and expected from pupils.
