INTENT
At Latchford St James Church of England Primary School we believe that the ability to be fluent in the fundamentals of maths, the ability to reason and the ability to solve mathematical problems are vital for ensuring that our children are given the best chance of being successful at each stage of their education and beyond. We intend to develop a real love and passion for Maths that extends far beyond the classroom, allowing children to build their independent Maths skills and utilise their maths knowledge as a tool in everyday life.
We believe that Maths should be enjoyable, deepen knowledge and understanding whilst also providing challenge. It is a key component to our curriculum at Latchford St James. We use a ‘Mastery Approach’ to Maths which involves an inclusive approach with deep learning, quality discussion, varied representations and opportunities to reason and problems solve both within the subject and across the curriculum.
These resources support our aim to ensure that children have the deep understanding, resilience, skills and confidence to apply their learning in other subject areas in order for them to achieve their potential.
OUR AIM IS TO ENSURE:
- A love and passion for the subject of Maths
- An environment where they are immersed in Maths
- Quality first teaching of lessons that are well resourced and provide challenge
- The ability to show initiative in solving problems in a wide range of contexts
- The ability to think independently and to show resilience when faced with challenges
- The ability to embrace the value of learning from mistakes
- The ability to reason and problem solve
- Opportunities to collaborate with peers to reason and problem solve
- An understanding of the important concepts and an ability to make connections within mathematics
- An opportunity to apply their learned skills within other areas of the curriculum
- Fluent knowledge and recall of number facts and the ability to utilise these in a range of different concepts
- Fluency in performing written and mental calculations
- A wide range of mathematical vocabulary that is built upon each year and which children are able to accurately apply.
IMPLEMENTATION
At Latchford St James CE we follow a “mastery approach” within lessons, which utilises the concrete, pictorial and abstract approach. This develops a deep understanding of maths in pupils.
Concrete – This is the ‘doing’ stage where pupils use physical objects to model and represent number and problems. This stage is vital in establishing foundations in the understanding of a concept as they are able to ‘see’ and make sense of what is happening.
Pictorial – Once pupils are confident using concrete resources for a concept, they move to drawing pictorial representations of the objects. This stage acts as a link between the concrete and the abstract.
Abstract – Following the concrete and pictorial stages, pupils move to the abstract stage using symbols and numerals to represent and model problems.
For the most effective learning to take place, children need to go back and forth between each of the stages to ensure concepts are reinforced and understood.
With these three steps in place, our pupils are able to explore:
- a range of mathematical concepts
- a variety of contexts
- an array of representations
- the use of practical equipment to support their learning
- mathematical discussion using key vocabulary
- collaborative and independent ways of working
- reasoning and solving problems in collaboration with others.
This ensures that our children hold a variety of skills to support their learning and that their knowledge and understanding is deepened within each unit.
IMPACT
Through the mastery approach, children at Latchford St James continue to gain confidence in discussing and explaining their understanding of concepts, representing their understanding in a variety of ways and using what they have learned to problem solve.
Regular assessment opportunities using a variety of summative and formative assessment tools allows teachers to plan accordingly to meet the needs of all pupils and where necessary, plan for early support and intervention.
Impact is also measured across school through learning walks, lesson observations, discussions around work within school books, data analysis, and conversations with pupils. End of Key Stage statutory assessments are also an indicator of how well we as a school perform, ensuring that Maths is a priority for our children.
