Maths

Curriculum intent

At Grange Community Junior School, we aim to promote a love of maths to enable our pupils to become motivated, resilient and confident mathematicians who can use their skills to solve a range of problems. As mathematics is a tool for life, we believe that our children learn best when Maths is taught through a practical approach with real-life scenarios. Learning opportunities are carefully planned to meet the needs of our pupils, so that they are motivated by – and engaged in – their learning. Our intention is to prepare our children, not only for their next stage of education, but for the maths that they will encounter in their future daily lives.

Our aim is for children at Grange to:

  • Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately;
  • Solve problems by applying their mathematical skills to a variety of problems, including unfamiliar contexts  and real-life scenarios;
  • Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry develop justification or proof using mathematical language.

At Grange Junior School, we use a mastery and Concrete Pictorial Abstract approach to develop the children’s conceptual understanding. Throughout our mathematics curriculum, there is a balance between fluency, reasoning and problem solving. A focus is placed on the development of mathematical language. Using worked examples, the children are given opportunities to talk about the strategies, concepts and skills being modelled.

Implementation of the curriculum

The maths national curriculum is delivered using the Hampshire Schemes of Learning. This is a spiral curriculum which revisits learning, deepening understanding every time a domain is revisited. Staff are required to adapt these plans to meet the needs of their cohorts and to ensure that there is full coverage of the curriculum, including fluency, reasoning and problem solving.

The use of manipulatives allows us to use models and images to enable the progression from concrete to pictorial and then to abstract. Children use these resources from year 3 to year 6, and they are available for children to use independently when needed during lessons. Other resources are selected to support the Hampshire Schemes in order to expose children to a wide variety of representations, ensuring that children are skilled at making their own jottings, including bar models. Teachers follow the school’s agreed progression documents for written and mental calculations.

By using worked examples during a learning episode (I do, we do, you do), teachers model the correct mathematical vocabulary with the expectation that the children will use it independently when talking about their maths learning. This vocabulary is displayed on the maths working wall alongside modelled examples of the learning. Fluency is developed, from Year 3 to 6, by frequent revision of key number facts linked to the Unit plans from the Hampshire Scheme. We value the importance of times table recall by having a school ‘Times Table Superheroes Challenge’. As children progress, they achieve a certificate for their superhero. Times table Rock Stars is also used alongside to support the children’s acquisition of times tables knowledge.

We recognise the range of differing abilities among our children and provide suitable learning opportunities that allow all children, wherever possible to be exposed to maths objectives relevant to their year group. Lessons are carefully planned using AfL, with learning tasks scaffolded to support children in accessing the curriculum, and provide appropriate challenge to learners working at a greater depth. Staff subject knowledge is continually developed through regular CPD, provided by the subject leader, the Hampshire Maths team and external courses, and allows us to deliver the intentions of our maths curriculum.

Impact of our curriculum

At Grange we encourage children’s deeper understanding of maths so that by the end of year 6 pupils;

  • know that maths is a vital skill that they will rely on in many areas of their daily life and they are able to use to recall the basic facts in all four operations accurately
  • can more confidently express ideas and talk about the subject using mathematical language
  • will have experienced a range of problems and reasoning questions and are able to identify the steps they need to do in order to be successful. They are able to use a range of strategies and representations to solve these problems.
  • will develop how to question, analyse and interpret information
  • will apply their mathematical knowledge to Science and other subjects.

TTRockstars