Maths

Maths at Cam Woodfield Junior School

Intent

At Cam Woodfield Junior School, we recognise that Mathematics is essential to everyday life and is vital to help with the understanding and application of Science, technology and engineering.

We aim to provide a high-quality Mathematics education to ensure every child has the opportunity to develop a sound understanding of Maths, equipping them with the skills of: calculation, reasoning and problem solving that they need in life beyond school. Learning is enhanced by the exploration of Mathematical concepts in a range of fun, purposeful experiences; helping children to become fluent, determined Mathematicians, who can confidently explain their understanding and solve problems.

We believe it is important to foster a love for learning Maths at our school, with all children developing a positive ‘can do’ attitude. All learning of Maths focuses upon the retrieval of knowledge that is then built upon to ensure children develop more Sticky Knowledge of the mathematical concepts taught. This approach ensures all children grow their confidence and progress their mathematical knowledge and skills by knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more.

Our Maths curriculum is designed with an emphasis on a mastery approach so that all children can:

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics
• Reason mathematically
• Solve problems by applying their mathematics

                                        (National Curriculum 2014)

Implementation

At Cam Woodfield Junior School, we use Can Do Maths, which provides all teachers with a scheme that helps develop a secure and deep understanding, including the use of practical resources and iconic representations to support the learning and memorisation of mathematical concepts (Can Do Maths 2019). With the use of Can Do Maths resources, we effectively use an ACE approach to teaching each skill of Maths that embeds a mastery approach within each lesson.

ACE:

• Acquire: the children practise the skill that has been modelled to them within the lesson
• Consolidate: the children secure their understanding of the skill through spot the mistake, true or false and explain questions
• Explore: the children apply their understanding of the skill to a range of open-ended word problems, explain questions and finding all possibilities

Once a week, children have a focused lesson on reasoning and word problems where they learn a specific problem solving skill. As a school, we use Colin’s 4 Cs (Consider, Construct, Calculate, Check), from Can Do Maths, to consider and solve a range of problems, where children construct bar models to understand the word problem. Teachers use problem solving resources, Testbase and Nrich to help them to plan effectively for these lessons.

To ensure that children within our school are fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics, we have Maths Meetings (deliberate practice sessions) every morning for twenty minutes, where the children revisit number facts and efficient methods for calculation from previous year groups, as well as retrieving knowledge that they have previously learnt in the year. Maths Meetings are planned by the teachers using the Can Do Maths scheme, as well as providing opportunities to address misconceptions from previous Maths lessons. We continually assess children’s understanding in arithmetic using a 10 in 10 test every Friday, and use this to inform future Maths Meetings.

At Cam Woodfield Junior School, we follow a whole school progressive scheme to teaching times tables, where children work to achieve an award by learning and recalling a times table and the corresponding division facts up to 12 x 12, at speed. Within times table sessions, they learn strategies, top tips, games and patterns to help them to learn the times table. They are then tested weekly where they are expected to complete forty questions, of multiplication and division facts, within 6 minutes. The scheme also encourages the children to revisit times tables that they have already achieved to help them to be secure in their understanding of all times tables. When a child completes an award their success is celebrated in assembly with a certificate. To further support the scheme and children’s enthusiasm to learn their times tables, we use Times Table Rock Stars within our lessons and as homework.

As a school, we also teach the 21 facts for timestables, where the children focus on one of the facts each day and record what they know using the three numbers linked to the fact.

As a school, we assess children’s understanding of all mathematical concepts within each lesson through our observations and feedback to the children. We use M.O.T sessions (Maths On Track), Maths Meetings and interventions to address misconceptions and gaps in their learning, to ensure progression for every child in Maths. Alongside our formative assessment methods, we also use Can Do Maths summative assessments to test the children in Maths every term against the age-related expectations that they are working within.

Where possible, teachers plan a thematic Maths lesson for every unit of the National Curriculum, to provide cross-curricular links and a real life context for Maths.

External providers and link schools further support the implementation of the school’s policy.

Impact

Maths teaching at Cam Woodfield Junior school is planned carefully alongside Can Do Maths resources, to effectively demonstrate progression in learning and help children reason and problem solve. Can Do Maths resources are fully supported by the Department for Education as they carefully match the National Curriculum objectives and expectations for each year group. Can Do Maths has been created specifically for children living in the UK and is fully aligned to the National Curriculum and KS2 SAT tests. It provides all the elements that teachers need to teach Maths and the mastery approach with confidence and encourages children to use mathematical vocabulary within discussions and explanations.

If children are secure in the objectives within their year group, they are considered to be working at age related expectations. We assess and monitor the children’s understanding through our school online data system, Insight, where the children’s understanding of a learning objective is RAG rated. Within our school, we use teacher judgements alongside summative assessment papers at the end of a term. We then use these assessments to inform future planning, interventions and support our judgements of their achievements against the age related expectations.

The impact and measure of Maths is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age related concepts linked to the Maths curriculum, but fundamentally skills which equip them to know more, remember more and believe that they are able to do more, that they can apply to real-life contexts.

 All children will have:

• A secure understanding of the mathematical concepts and skills for arithmetic and reasoning.
• Demonstrate that they have built upon prior learning and they can apply their understanding to a range of contexts within Maths and real life applications.
• A richer vocabulary, which will enable to articulate their understanding of taught concepts, answer a range of word problems and actively take part in discussions.
• High aspirations and a sense of enquiry where children are actively involved in Mathematical discussions and explorations in problem solving lessons.
• Demonstrate that they have a secure understanding of problem solving skills to independently understand and work out a given problem.
• An appreciation and enthusiasm to persevere when learning a new concept in Maths as they understand that they ‘can do it!’

 In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• An analysis of the objectives achieved and the percentage of children achieving ARE within their year group.
• Moderation events within the school to demonstrate the progression across the year groups.
• Pupil discussions and conferencing about their learning and Maths within the school.
• Tracking and analysis of end of term assessment tests.