Maths
Subject Leader: Louise Chambers
Our Curriculum Intent
In line with the National Curriculum, maths at St John’s develops children’s fluency, reasoning and problem solving in a range of areas. We aim to develop a love for maths by exposing its beauty and power, as well as relating it to everyday life to put it into context.
We are committed to a ‘mastery’ approach whereby children are encouraged to be mathematical thinkers, with a knowledge of number embedded do they can tackle nay problem. Our teachers are skilled at assessing the needs of their class and providing appropriate access points. The children work hard to master the curriculum for their year group, so they have firm foundations to build upon the following year.
Our approach aims to deepen our children’s understanding of mathematical concepts through lots of verbal reasoning and practical problem solving. Lessons involve practical representations and our children are then able to visualise these when answering tricky problems. Pupils have the opportunity to share quality talk with each other to help them explain their ideas.
The children’s fluency is enhanced by the use of key stage 2 times table sessions, maths passports and retrieval practice in arithmetic which allows them to pull on their strong number fact knowledge. We teach number facts and times tables in a specific order, to build on prior learning and make new connections. Repetition is key to ensuring these facts become ‘go to’ automated thinking!
All children are taught to have a positive mind-set in maths. They know the importance of challenge in maths and use it as a learning tool, they believe in themselves, they have a range of strategies to draw on, they understand that our brains grow and change and that speed is not the most important part during learning. The ethos of the school’s maths curriculum is not necessarily to find the answer but to explore the journey we’ve been on to find it.
Our maths scholars are extremely proud of the roles they hold and meet to solve interesting mathematical problems. They compete in maths challenges within our trust and participate in competitions. The maths scholars are incredibly enthusiastic and brilliant role models for the rest of the school. They particularly enjoy providing the younger children with support in their maths lessons, especially our early years learners.
Our children thrive when outdoors so, where possible, we extend the classroom into our outdoor spaces and try to consider how we can teach certain concepts outside whenever we can.
Useful Documents