Mathematics at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary School

Intent

The aims of mathematics teaching at Our Lady of Lourdes:

• To develop a positive attitude to mathematics;
• To develop a strong understanding of number and calculation;
• To develop children’s reasoning, logical thinking and problem solving skills;
• To ensure that all children will be given the opportunities to develop their mathematics skills regardless of gender, race, ability, culture or ethnicity;
• To provide rich mathematical experiences, where children can apply their knowledge of mathematics to everyday life;
• To explore and enjoy the patterns in mathematics and to solve a wide range of puzzles and problems.

Implementation

The new National Curriculum forms the basis for our long term planning: setting out the expectations in each year group. The medium term planning organises the topics systematically term by term. Short term unit plans are prepared for daily teaching.

Children are taught in mixed ability classes.

The curriculum is taught through the units as follows with all year groups teaching the same units at similar times.

Number and place value, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions, measurement, geometry, statistics.

Teaching

Teaching of mathematics at Our Lady of Lourdes has links with Shanghai/Singapore maths. We are beginning to embed the CPA (concrete, pictoral, abstract) approach to lessons. All concepts are introduced with concrete resources for children to feel and manipulate. As their conceptual understanding develops, they move towards the pictoral and abstract stages. These are recorded in their books as ‘the real story’ and ‘the maths story’. Children are not pushed to move through these stages until they have shown understanding gained by the teacher through skillful assessment.

The teachers role in lessons is to:

• demonstrate a clear model – this is to remain on display throughout the lesson for children to access and refer to and illustrates the steps to success.
• create steps to success with the children
• allow time for discussion and pair work
• continually assess children’s understanding using hinge questions
• provide support or scaffolding when needed
• present challenge and to develop understanding through expert questioning and reasoning opportunities.

Visualisation is a core mathematical skill. Teachers provide many opportunities for children to explain their understanding by writing or drawing what they understand. Teachers use this to uncover misconceptions, assess and then challenge children.

In addition to this, teachers use ‘immediate application’ to embed concepts. Each lesson is delivered through a variety of vehicles/variation of materials/images and ensure children are applying instantly. E.g. 10 x10 = 100, 10 x 10 cats = 100 cats etc.

Developing a keen number sense is a vital part of our maths curriculum. Children are always asked to explain how they know an answer, if they can show it a different way/an easier way to build upon their conceptual understanding.

Calculation Policy

The calculation policy sets out a clear progression throughout the school for the four operations. It shows the expectations for the end of each school year. Within the Maths Handbook, is a photo of each of the stages, showing both the real story and maths story.

Mental skills

Mental skills are taught daily as part of their KIRFS (Key Instant Recall Facts). This includes the modelling of mental strategies and time to practise key mental skills. Times table practise happens regularly in school. Children are tested on their timestables and number bond facts each week with the results being sent home so parents/carers can support their practise.