Maths

“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” – Albert Einstein

“Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems – they just love a challenge.” – Andrew Wiles

Pupils will understand maths which provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically and appreciation of the power of mathematics. Maths will give the pupils an opportunity to practice, recall and apply the fundamentals and develop this into increasingly complex problems.

Pupils will be taught over a series of lessons which include:

  • Revisiting previously taught knowledge and skills;
  • Mathematical Vocabulary;
  • Exposure to fluency, reasoning and problem solving
  • Concrete concepts, pictoral representations and abstract methods.

At Girnhill Infant School we expose our pupils to a breadth of challenges, inspire learners to develop a love of mathematics and encourage them to appreciate the beauty and possibility of number! Through the use of carefully selected resources we intend to scaffold and challenge our leaners to enable them to develop confidence and efficient strategies to make a positive contribution to the wider world.

We are ambitious in our expectations of all pupils, ensuring strong cross curricular links are made to develop children holistically.

Intent

At Girnhill, Mathematics is taught through the ambitious National Curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, enhanced and supplemented with the use of Maths Hub documents to support staff to plan small progressive steps in a specific coherent teaching sequence. At Girnhill Infant School we expose our pupils to a breadth of challenges, inspire learners to develop a love of mathematics and encourage them to appreciate the beauty and possibility of number! Through the use of carefully selected resources we intend to scaffold and challenge our learners to enable them to develop their confidence and efficient strategies in order to make a positive contribution to the wider world. We are ambitious in our expectations of all pupils, ensuring cross curricular links are made to develop children holistically. We map the National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage Framework for mathematics into a coherent and sequential progression model that outlines the substantive knowledge, disciplinary knowledge, vocabulary and sentence stems needed at each stage that will build cumulatively towards learners being able to use and apply their knowledge, skills and understanding across a range of mathematical concepts, making purposeful links.  At Girnhill Infant School, oracy is a powerful tool for learning; by teaching children to become more effective speakers and listeners we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. Vocabulary is purposeful and progressive to allow children to develop their oracy and leave school being able to articulate their understanding of maths using the four strands of good talk. Technical tiered vocabulary is modelled through flashcards and teacher talk. Number talk sessions enable children to develop numerical oracy in concepts such as perceptual subitising and cardinality, part-whole awareness and conceptual subitising. This will enable children to build images of numbers and visualise number facts, as well as supporting language development. Sentence stems are used to provide children with a model of how to speak like a mathematician and scaffold their talk effectively. Questions are planned in advance to target pre-empted misconceptions and enable children to develop their explanations and methodology. Hinge questions are used as a method of formative assessment in order to check children’s understanding and address misconceptions. This is linked to the progression grid so that over time children know more and remember more.

Implementation
We ensure that all teachers, including those who are non-specialists, have excellent subject knowledge and are supported in the implementation of the curriculum by the experienced Mathematics Leader.  Oracy is woven throughout mathematics. The progression grid details the oracy expectations of each year group within the four strands of good talk. It also includes the tiered technical vocabulary all learners need to acquire and use in order to talk like a mathematician. This will be modelled using flash cards, teacher talk using ‘my turn your turn’ and opportunities are made for children to practice using the vocabulary throughout lessons. Suggested sentence stems are provided and used in order to scaffold responses. Opportunities for children to practise the skill of presentational talk will be further developed in mathematics through the use of mode B learning such as collaborative learning and presenting findings to one another.

Through using Rosenshine’s Principles, learners have the opportunity to revisit and build on prior knowledge. Daily review is used at the beginning of every session in order to activate prior learning to attach new learning to. High-quality modelling of skills and language is offered to our children and scaffolds are provided for difficult tasks. Visual success criteria is provided for learners every lesson and learners are encouraged to use the CPA approach. Learners are given the opportunity to practise and apply their new acquired knowledge, skills and understanding through a wide range of varied fluency, reasoning and problem-solving opportunities during daily maths lessons.  Questions are progressively planned for using conceptual and procedural variation in order to target pre-empted misconceptions and enable children to develop their explanations and methodology. Hinge questions are used as a method of formative assessment in order to check children’s understanding and address misconceptions. Classroom working walls demonstrate prior learning, promote the vocabulary specific to current learning, worked modelled examples, success criteria, concrete, pictorial and abstract methodology and visual sentence stems.

Impact
When they leave each phase, most learners have the knowledge, skills and vocabulary necessary to progress to the next stage of their learning. As a result of high-quality teaching, learners make sustained progress in mathematics and develop the competence to reason and problem solve confidently and efficiently enabling them to make a positive contribution to the wider world. Pupil voice will show that children can talk about their enjoyment and understanding of mathematics using key modelled vocabulary, measured against our age-based progression grids. Learners books will reflect the positive attitude and resilience in mathematics acting upon feedback.