At St Kentigern’s Catholic Primary School we believe that, from a very early age, mathematics is a vital part of children’s development throughout school. Children’s chances of success are maximised if they develop deep and lasting understanding of mathematical procedures and concepts. We value a curriculum that is creative and engaging and follows a mastery approach. Mastering maths means pupils of all ages and abilities acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject.
Mathematics is the foundation for understanding the world and our aim is that children know the purpose behind their learning and how to apply their knowledge in their everyday lives. We strive to give children the chance to believe in themselves as mathematicians and develop the power of resilience and perseverance when faced with mathematical challenges. Children will make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. They will become fluent in mathematics that can be recalled quickly and transferred and applied in other subjects.
At St Kentigern’s we follow White Rose planning in order to ensure that our children have full coverage of the Mathematics National Curriculum and to allow our pupils to build upon topics; embedding concepts. Children are taught through clear modelling and have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts. The mastery approach incorporates using objects, pictures, words and numbers to help children explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enrich their learning experience and deepen understanding at all levels. All children are catered for within the maths lessons, ensuring that the teacher and support staff offer the necessary support and challenge for each individual to make progress.
We ensure that mathematics is taught in creative and engaging lessons using a wide array of maths manipulatives to aid and support our pupils in their learning. We aim to encourage the deepest of learning for our children so that their knowledge can be transferred and applied in many contexts including other subjects and their everyday lives. Pupils work on the objective at whatever entrance stage they are assessed as being at and they can acquire the skill, apply the skill or deepen the skill within the lesson. Children move through the different stages of their learning at their own pace and those who have shown their understanding at a deep level within the unit of work, will have opportunities to apply these skills in a greater depth activity. This should be challenging and ensure that children are using more than just one skill to be able to answer the mathematical problems. Reasoning and problem solving are integral to the activities children are given to develop their mathematical thinking.
Mathematics is widely valued across school and our classrooms have working walls that the children can utilise to support their learning and provide extra challenge.
We aim to ensure that the three core areas of the National Curriculum are covered in our lessons: fluency, reasoning and problem solving. We aim to offer opportunities for varied and frequent practice of maths skills with a focus on the ability to recall and apply their knowledge quickly and accurately. Mathematical vocabulary is a vital part of each lesson and the pupils need to be able to understand this in order to make links and connections with other areas of this subject. We hope to build confident mathematicians who have a love of maths, good problem-solving skills and a resilience that they can use in all aspects of their learning and day-to-day lives.
Through our creative and engaging maths curriculum we aim to show a clear progression in work throughout school and enable all children to: