Maths

At Flanderwell, our maths curriculum ensures that children have the opportunity to become secure, confident and competent mathematicians.

We believe that our maths curriculum needs to ensure that all children know and remember more. Using a mastery approach, we hope that all children will develop a deep and long-lasting understanding of maths, which allows them to be flexible within their approaches to learning. We want for all children to be fluent with their methods and facts so that they are adept in their problem solving, mathematical thinking and reasoning.

Curriculum Implementation

Our long-term plan is based upon the recommended National Curriculum to ensure that children are exposed to a challenging curriculum. We use White Rose to ensure that learning is sequential and uses small steps to support children to master each mathematical concept. The progression of skills is clear across school so that children are able to build upon solid foundations and create links to their new learning. Spaced retrieval is used to ensure that children have the opportunity to revisit concepts regularly. Children will also have the chance to practice various elements of the curriculum so that they can achieve automaticity. Combining all of these elements will ensure that nothing is left to chance.

This progression document outlines how each area of maths develops across the year groups and the small steps that children will take to deepen their understanding of each concept.

Whole School Maths Progression

We ensure that the three aims of the National Curriculum are addressed weekly: Fluency, Reasoning and Problem Solving.

Fluency is taught regularly across school and forms an integral part of Maths lessons. Children also have additional opportunities to develop their fluency outside of Maths lessons. In EYFS and KS1, Mastering Number is used to help children to develop a thorough understanding of number and the relationships between them. In KS2, children will develop their arithmetic skills during regular focused sessions in which they will develop their ability to calculate effectively with whole numbers, decimals and fractions, and use their knowledge of place value. Children will have ownership of their maths and will regularly discuss the most effective method and they will have the freedom to select the method that they would like to use.

As a fundamental aspect of our maths curriculum is reasoning and problem solving, children will be taught the skills that they need to be able to apply their knowledge to a variety of different contexts. To support children with this, children will need to develop their mathematical thinking and be able to verbalise their thoughts clearly using the correct vocabulary. The use of sentence stems within lessons will ensure that children are able to do this and can fluently express their thinking.

Resources and manipulatives are used within all year groups and children are moved between concrete, abstract and pictorial representations as they progress through their learning. The use of resources within independent tasks will help to support children to access challenging learning and to deepen their understanding of different concepts.

Assessment

Within our maths lessons, assessment for learning is continuously taking place to inform lesson planning, lesson delivery and next steps. As part of this, live marking is valued to ensure that children are receiving timely feedback. We use these assessments to provide pre-teach activities, where children have the opportunity to encounter new learning before a lesson, and same day intervention, where children revisit the learning from the day to ensure that they have a secure understanding. 

We assess maths attainment at least once a term and use a point in time judgement to decide if the child is working below/at/above age-related expectation. To validate teacher assessments, we also use a termly test to obtain a standardised score. This helps us identify whether pupils are where they should be for that point of the year and if any additional support is required such as additional tuition or intervention.

To see the full content of the maths curriculum for each year group, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-mathematics-programmes-of-study