Mathematics Statement
‘With joyful hearts, we love, learn and praise as the family of God’
Intent
At Sacred Heart 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.
We believe that concrete resources are an integral starting point in every teaching sequence and these should be explicitly linked to pictorial representations. Next, the children should have access to range of activities from our school ‘toolkit’ which encourage fluency and reasoning. Finally, towards the end of each teaching sequence, children should be problem solving with particular links to connections of other areas of mathematics such a measure, shape and statistics. We aim that each child develops a deep mathematical understanding of each strand of mathematics.
Our curriculum allows 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. We also 'dip in' to other resources as and when required, e.g. White Rose Maths and NCETM Teaching for Mastery/ PD materials. The mapping of Mathematics across school shows clear progression in line with age related expectations.
Mathematics in our school is enhanced by our individual class working walls designed to aid children through each topic, through maths apps such as TT rock stars and maths.co.uk and through enhancement days such as ‘More able mathematician’ trips or ‘maths wow’ days.
Teachers are supported through regular CPD and aided in their roles ensuring confidence in the skills and facts they are required to teach. Lessons are child focused and maths is kept fun and current in school.
Implementation
Please click here to see the Long Term Plans for this year.
For additional information about supporting your child in Maths, please click here.
At Sacred Heart we are outward looking and creative in our approach to implementing a high-quality mathematics curriculum. Our implementation is developed through secure understanding of the curriculum and subject area.
Planning
1. Long term: Long term plans set out by maths coordinator.
2. Medium term: planning follows a sequence of concrete, pictorial, abstract (through use of toolkit activities such as correct or not correct, match me up, missing numbers, star centre etc. to develop fluency), followed by ‘connections’ activities which should make explicit links to other areas of the curriculum such as measure and statistics.
3. Short term:
- Daily lessons include a clear lesson intention ‘Lesson objective’.
- Daily lessons are taught in 3 parts: starter, main & plenary and incorporate the Teaching Cycle (Teach, Practice, Apply and Review/Assess).
- Short term planning is supported by the use of other materials such as White Rose, NCETM materials, Nrich activities.
Teaching
‘Quality first teaching’ linked to teaching standards:
All teachers:
1. ‘Know where their children are’ through the use of concise summative assessment, prior learning, assessment, maths talk
2. ‘Understand where their children need to be’ through a secure understanding of year group expectations and/or pre key stage expectations and incisive, ongoing, formative assessment
3. ‘Know how they are going to get them there’ through the use of a range of strategies to promote independence, mastery and high expectations of ALL.
4. Effectively deploy adults, specifically during introductions, plenaries & catch-up sessions
5. Plan for progression during and between lessons.
More Able
More able learners are challenged through questioning during the teaching input as well as activities in class which require a deeper level of thinking. More able learners may also be accessing additional afternoon extension activities with a learning support assistants depending on the needs of each cohort.
Lowest 20%
Learners who are working below expectations are assessed in addition to class based assessments on a half-yearly basis and will access intervention groups or 1:1 learning as appropriate.
Impact
At Sacred Heart, a high-quality mathematical education aims to develop a range of reasoning and problem-solving skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas, particularly Science, Geography and Computing. We also believe that our curriculum enables our pupils to be well prepared for secondary education and beyond as we consistently seek ways to teach real life problem solving mathematics to our children.
We seek to have a supportive ethos and our approaches support the children in becoming competent and confident mathematicians. The structure of the mathematics curriculum at our school ensures that all children are taught the strands expected from the 2014 National Curriculum. We aim to challenge each and every pupil to help them to achieve success in Mathematics by developing a growth mind-set, resilience and a love for the subject. This ensures that we are able to maintain high standards of attainment above that of Manchester and national standard.