Maths

The Teaching of Mathematics at High Street Primary School 

Children at High Street need to see how their maths is useful in their daily lives and must aspire to want to improve these skills to carve a future career for themselves. Our students will face unique economic, environmental, and humanitarian challenges in the future. We aim to encourage and build skills for problem solving that will address these challenges.  

At High Street we strive to ensure pupils’ encounter a wide range of mathematical experiences that promote enjoyment and enthusiasm for mathematics through a wide selection of practical activities, exploration and discussion.  

The National Curriculum for mathematics aims for children to become fluent so that they can recall and apply knowledge accurately and efficiently; be able to reason mathematically using accurate and precise language and solve increasingly complex problems. However, our overarching aim is that children believe that they can do maths. We achieve this by teaching with a mastery approach. 

Teaching for Mastery 

Mastering maths means acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject. At any one point in a pupil’s journey through school, achieving mastery is taken to mean acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that’s been taught to enable him/her to move on to more advanced material.  

A central component to Mastery is the Five Big Ideas:  

Teaching is underpinned by a belief in the importance of mathematics and that the vast majority of children can succeed in learning mathematics in line with national expectations for the end of each key stage.  

In line with the National Curriculum, it is our expectation that all pupils acquire mathematical knowledge appropriate to their age and starting points that enables them to recall it rapidly and apply it fluently and accurately, including when calculating efficiently. The ability to calculate mentally is an important part of mathematics, however, we aim that by Year 6, as many children as possible, will understand, and use successfully, effective written strategies, to carry out and record calculations which they cannot do mentally.  

How we implement this at High Street 

Foundation 

We teach our Foundation children using a mastery approach following the NCETM Mastering Number Programme alongside lessons planned by the Foundation teachers according to the needs of the children.  

Children have a daily maths session as a whole class, where the aim is to enable all children to develop a deep, secure and adaptable understanding of mathematical concepts. Children are encouraged to work independently, and with their learning partner, using a variety of resources to explore concepts and problem solve. They share these with the rest of the class to demonstrate different strategies and approaches.  

Children complete 1:1 adult directed work around the concept currently being taught as well as having opportunities to explore concepts independently through continuous provision. Children are encouraged to use the recording skills they have learnt during whole class sessions during their independent learning when exploring concepts. 

Children not working at age related expectations, and children who are finding concepts tricky, are identified to complete booster sessions and interventions. EYFS staff continually assess and review the children’s understanding in whole class sessions and use this to inform who the children accessing additional support are.  

Key Stages 1 & 2 

We teach using a mastery approach with the DFE recommended textbook, ‘Maths: No Problem!’ as our main resource. 

In classrooms you can expect to see high levels of pupil engagement and involvement. Lessons begin with an interesting and engaging problem to solve and the teacher’s role is to make this accessible to all. Concrete materials (usually in the form of representations or manipulatives) are used to support the children’s thinking and develop their understanding of the mathematical structure. Pupil talk and collaboration is encouraged, enabling peer support, challenge and/or refinement of ideas. Teachers use pupils’ ideas to create a series of class discussions in which all are encouraged to participate, often attempting to see into the minds of those offering the ideas.  

Different ideas are embraced and discussed. The class will spend a significant length of time reflecting on their own and others ideas: they do this through journaling and exploring the thinking of others as presented in the textbook. Towards the end of each lesson, the children practise what they have learned, usually through a number of examples guided by the teacher and ultimately, independently. The inbuilt variation in the books enables the children to practise the same kind of problem in a number of different ways.  

Struggling learners are mainly supported through concrete materials, peer dialogue and problems that are in real life situations. Rapid graspers are challenged through deepening conceptual understanding rather than acceleration onto new content and are encouraged to think more independently. 

Journals are used to develop pupils’ communication skills and record children’s thought processes, therefore deepening conceptual understanding. Once children have had the opportunity to refine their thinking, they are expected to record this using diagrams/drawings, writing and abstract mathematical notation.  

 Children are given time to grapple without teacher intervention (to develop resilience and allow for exploration). Feedback ‘in the moment’ should help children to address misconceptions. Feedback in lessons is mainly oral, though you may see teachers marking journals and workbooks whilst the children are writing in them. An intervention may be necessary for individual or small groups of children. If the whole class (or significant part of it) has a misconception the teacher’s planning of the next lesson will be adapted. Other resource will be used for this including the NCETM Curriculum Prioritisation resources. 

Mastering Number/Fluency sessions 

All classes have extra time in their timetables to work on fluency. These are heavily focussed on being able to recall number facts that will support children with their maths therefore reducing cognitive load. Key Stage 1 use the NCETM’s Mastering Number resources to plan these sessions. 

Assessment 

• Use of Baseline test at the beginning of the year to assess what children have retained from the previous year. This will inform planning for each unit and Y3-6 will use this to plan fluency sessions. This information will also be used to plan interventions. 

• Use of unit reviews (completed 2 or 3 weeks after finishing the unit) to determine knowledge and understanding that has stuck. Use this to assess understanding of objectives and record on Insight and to plan for interventions. 

• Use of mid yearly and end of year MNP tests (Insights) to support teacher assessment judgements and to plan for interventions and areas to be addressed. 

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