Intent

Maths is a skill we use on a daily basis and is an essential part of everyday life. Therefore, at Oaklands mathematics forms an important part of our broad and balanced curriculum where we endeavour to ensure that children develop an enjoyment and enthusiasm for maths that will stay with them throughout their lives and empower them in future life. We believe that unlocking mathematical fluency is an essential life skill for all learners and is a pre-requisite to being able to reason and solve problems mathematically. Our aim is to develop a positive culture of deep understanding, confidence and competence in maths that produces strong, secure learning.

Implementation

In EYFS, children build their mathematical understanding through daily taught sessions as well as through stories and child-initiated play. The environment supports early number recognition and development as well an understanding of numerical patterns. Continuous assessment informs planning and delivery to ensure children make rapid progress.

Across the school, we follow the scheme of White Rose Maths to support the delivery of high-quality lessons that ensure children learn the fundamentals behind the meanings of numbers and are also given the opportunity to explore other key mathematical areas. Learning is delivered in blocks using ‘small steps’ to break down the teaching sequence into achievable parts; this allows children to focus on one concept at a time. When confident to do so, children are set tasks to extend their thinking and encourage them to reason and problem solve.  Where children require additional support, ‘scaffolds’ are used to support children further to ensure that they have secured the small step before moving on. For children who understand a concept quicker, challenges are used to deepen and challenge learners further within the curriculum area. Progression documents such as our calculation policy are carefully used to ensure that children are not being stretched outside their year group but rather deepened within it.

Maths lessons are taught daily. At the start of the lesson, teachers spend time recapping and revisiting children’s prior learning. This is followed by teaching which stretches and supports children’s understanding using a variety of questions in varying formats. Children then complete a task, either independently or as part of a group to demonstrate their skills. Further problem solving and reasoning challenges provide depth and breadth of learning and allow the teacher to assess the understanding during the lesson.

Outside of the daily maths lesson, children receive additional sessions devoted to number fluency and times tables. In EYFS and KS1, we use the Number Sense Maths programme that provides the structure and depth to deliver number fact teaching to ensure that children achieve the necessary number fluency. In KS2 we follow a systematic approach to developing the rapid recall of tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4 this then continues through upper KS2 to ensure knowledge is retained.

Assessment forms an important element of our curriculum. Termly assessments are used as a diagnostic tool to ensure that teachers are adapting learning to meet the needs of all children and ensure that any necessary interventions are targeted specifically to meet.

Impact

As a result of our teaching at Oaklands, children will:

• Be engaged, highly motivated and resilient and ready to learn in maths.
• Rapidly recall a range of number facts including their times tables.
• Confidently verbalise their thinking and demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways when solving problems.
• Have a secure level of mathematics that adequately prepares them for their next stage of learning.