Maths
Intent – Why do we teach what we teach?
At Harris Academy Chobham Primary, we use a mastery approach to deliver mathematics through the implementation of Effective Maths: this is a comprehensive framework that endeavours the success of our children through high quality teaching which is in line with the objectives of the National Curriculum.
Our intent for all our children is to:
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understand and become confident in mastery.
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to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics.
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to use procedural knowledge to understand mathematical patterns, relationships and connections.
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to be able to confidently reason mathematically.
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to acquire a sense of enquiry and curiosity.
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to conject relationships and generalisations to elaborate on their understanding.
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to use mathematical language to articulate like an expert.
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to make mathematical links to the real world.
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to apply their mathematical knowledge to science and other subjects; as well as, to explore mathematics above and beyond the National Curriculum and make links to the wider world.
At Harris Academy Chobham, we have high expectations of what our children can achieve: we want our children to not only become successful mathematicians, but we also want them to have a sense of curiosity, be passionate learners, to experience the true richness of mathematics and have love for the subject.
Implementation – how do we teach what we teach?
EYFS
In EYFS, Mathematics is delivered through the curriculum: Development Matters. We understand that a strong grounding in number is essential for children to develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. To support the mathematical success of our youngest children, numeracy and the fundamentals of mathematics are embedded through all parts of their learning, including play: this is to enhance their numeric skills and learning. Our children are taught to use the operations addition and subtraction and solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing. Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. These crucial fundamentals become a foundation which is built on as the children progress mathematically each year. We want our children to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them, and the patterns within those numbers, as well as make links to their real life and the wider world.
Years 1 – 6
The strength of our mastery approach is that it allows our children to secure all the necessary foundational knowledge they require to possess a thorough understanding of mathematics to grasp further advanced concepts. In the classroom, the lessons begin with the fundamentals of substantive knowledge to ensure every child has a solid understanding of one topic before moving on to another. This gives our children the best opportunity in mastering maths and becoming successful mathematicians which encourages the growth of their attainment. As we want our children to be unlimited learners, our children explore mathematics beyond the National Curriculum by immersing in many exciting and exhilarating events such as external workshops held in school such as: Mathematician Day and Enterprise Day, where our children can broaden their knowledge by engaging and exploring mathematics even further.
At Harris Academy Chobham, we want to ensure that every child succeeds in mathematics. Therefore, at the start of the year, each child completes a number fact assessment which teachers use as a gap-analysis to ensure children are secure in key skills before moving on to new learning. This is to ensure that every child has the same opportunity to successful learning, and no child is left behind. This assessment then informs starters at the beginning of lessons which is an opportunity to further secure key content and key number facts through repetition.
To master proficiently the teaching of mastery for a successful outcome of learning for each child of every ability, our impactful lessons follow the structure of: language, thinking, understanding and problem solving. Learning in each lesson is scaffolded through examples that are concrete, pictorial and abstract: this highly effective approach to teaching develops a deep and reliable understanding of mathematics. To allow the children to reason mathematically by using mathematical language, partner talk is embedded within each lesson. Each Effective Maths task ends with a challenge which is designed so that the children can reason mathematically and delve deeper into their learning. As we want our children to be in practice of working above and beyond, we also embed a further independent challenge task: for these challenges, teachers at Harris Academy Chobham often use resources such as Testbase and I See Maths by Gareth Metcalfe.
Our full overview of the Effective Maths curriculum can be viewed by clicking on the link below:
Please click here for a full Maths overview
Impact – how do we know what pupils have learnt and how well they have learnt it?
The impact on our children is evident through their progress, their learning and attainment.
Formative assessments are carried out through: retrieval quizzes; weekly times table checks; live marking and pupil voice to monitor the children’s learning to provide ongoing assessment. This is used to identify any weaknesses in learning a child may have. To ensure that no child is left behind in their learning, our aim is to fill these gaps immediately by using methods such as conferencing, teacher feedback, re-visiting and after school boosters. Summative assessments are carried out through end of unit quizzes and termly assessments.
Children have many opportunities to explore and develop their mathematical skills through almost all subjects and various methods of learning. We want our children to link their understanding of mathematics and all learning to be successful in their real life and to have a broad understanding of the wider world.
