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Kidsgrove Primary School
Empowering Learners...Growing Minds
Summary of Implementation of Maths at Kidsgrove
How do we IMPLEMENT maths at Kidsgrove?
At Kidsgrove Primary School, we want children to understand the importance of maths at school and in the ever-changing modern world. Our curriculum will develop happy mathematicians who are curious and resilient learners. We believe our children will become fluent in the essentials and logical in their reason and problem solving, developing mastery. Rigorous and robust teaching will enhance a carefully constructed curriculum that is inclusive and ambitious for all. As a result, pupils are ready for a smooth transition to their next stage in education.
We believe in Keep up not Catch up for the teaching of maths. Every child becomes fluent through a high-quality maths curriculum. This is then supported through a linked approach to branching out maths, home learning, maths in the wider curriculum and regular opportunities for independent learning. All of these are essential components as they offer the range of opportunities needed to develop fluency, enthusiastic and resilient mathematicians.
Maths is at the heart of our curriculum. We are committed to promoting a love of maths and not only giving children opportunities to in maths lessons, but in the wider curriculum too.
The majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace.... Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on (NC, 2014, p.3).
Key Features of Our Approach:
- The large majority of pupils progress through the curriculum content at the same pace.
- Teachers reinforce an expectation that all pupils are capable of achieving high standards in mathematics.
- Pupils are taught through whole-class teaching, where the focus is on all pupils working together on the same lesson content at the same time.
- Teaching is underpinned by a small-steps curriculum design philosophy and supported by carefully crafted lessons and curated resources to foster deep conceptual and procedural knowledge.
- Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and/or through individual support and intervention.
- If a pupil fails to grasp a concept or procedure, this is identified within the lesson structure and timely intervention ensures the pupil is best placed to move forward.
- Key facts such as multiplication tables and addition facts within 10 are retained throuh retrieval practice to develop automaticity; this avoids cognitive overload in the working memory and enables pupils to focus on new concepts.
Our Maths Approach at Kidsgrove
Linking Curriculum and Pedagogy
We have a researched informed approach to teaching mathematics and our curriculum is implemented through a mastery approach to teaching mathematics. Therefore, our school has adopted a lesson design philosophy that links closely to Rosenshine’ s 'Principles of Instruction.' (See Lesson Structure document outlining each part of a lesson and how it links to research informed practice).
Automaticity
Automaticity is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice. At Kidsgrove automaticity is attained through learning, repetition, and practice. Each day pupils have an opportunity to revisit and practise learning from the last lesson, last week and last term during Branching out Maths sessions.
Fluency and Number Sense
We also recognise the importance of research by Rosenshine and his Principles of Instruction, as well as the EEF's Improving Maths research. Both studies highlight the importance of children regularly given time to revisit past learning, as well as continual practise of basic skills. This is why all children from KS1 complete ‘Quick 10’ activities, which gives them opportunity to recall and practise key arithmetic knowledge.
Children in EYFS, KS1 and year 3, also have the opportunity to develop fluency with basic number facts, within daily Number Sense and Year 4 upwards pupil have Number Sense Times Tables Fluency daily sessions. These are all in addition to their daily Branching Out mathematics lessons.
High Quality Resources
White Rose premium resources are used to support the implementation of our Branching out curriculum and Number Sense for our Arithmetic. However, to ensure that children have an enriching mathematics curriculum, teachers carefully select other resources to support their teaching.
Through the use of these we ensure:
- Teachers introduce new concepts in a logical sequence.
- Concepts are taught through high quality mathematical models and images.
- Mathematical models are consistently used through school.
- Teachers are supported with their subject knowledge.
- Our calculations policy is consistently applied
The Teaching of Reasoning
We intend for all pupils to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
The Teaching of Problem Solving
We intend for all pupils to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.
Whilst we are providing our children with frequent opportunities to problem solve, we have found that some children in the past have struggled to formulate an efficient strategy to help them be successful.
Therefore, to help our children, we have introduced a new approach to problem solving throughout the school. It is called the RUCSAC method. Whenever they are faced with a problem, we encourage our children to use the strategy as follows:
A Vocabulary Rich Environment
We have created a vocabulary rich environment, where talk for maths is a key learning tool for all pupils. Pre teaching key vocabulary is a driver for pupil understanding and develops the confidence of pupils to explain mathematically.
Online Maths Tool
In order to advance individual children’s maths skills in school and at home, we utilise Times Tables Rock Stars for multiplication practise, application and consolidation.
In Key Stage 2 we use the online platform Mirodo. We used it to support SEN interventions, pre teaches and homework etc. Our learning platform adapts to every child’s needs. Every child works at a different pace and Mirodo helps to tailor learning for a personalised learning experience. Children also have access to video to support teaching and learning.
Inclusion
At Kidsgrove, our curriculum is ambitious and has been designed to give all learners the mathematical knowledge and skills to succeed beyond the classroom. Our school strives to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs (SEND), with disabilities or high need and we use a mastery approach that ensures all children are provided with the support and challenge that they need.
Linked to Rosenshine’s principles of instruction, our lesson design ensures that children’s knowledge is recapped through retrieval practice to embed learning in to their long-term memory and to provide a ‘thread’ from previously learnt material to new learning. Information is taught in small steps and models are provided alongside new information – utilising dual coding theory. Teacher’s utilise questioning to ensure that children have acquired the knowledge whilst identifying children who require further explicit instruction and practice.
Concrete manipulatives and pictorial representatives are available for all children to allow them to access new mathematical concepts and we encourage their use throughout our units of work.
Children with SEND
All children deserve a rich and challenging mathematical education and good teaching for pupils with SEND is good teaching for all (EEF, 2021). At Kidsgrove, we understand that some children may be working below or require support to allow them to prevent them from falling behind their peers, due to their learning needs. In order to support of children with SEND we:
- Know our children – Promote positive relationships with all pupils, without exceptions
- Know their needs – Understand individual pupil’s learning needs through regular assessment (retrieval) and planning and identify the gaps in their knowledge
- High quality teaching – We develop a repertoire of strategies to support children linked to Rosenshine’s principles of instruction
- Complement whole class with small group/intervention support – Children are identified through questioning, understanding and acquired knowledge and support has a more intense focus on a smaller number of learning goals.
We use our knowledge of the children in our care to find the right starting point to build successful learning from. At times, the learning may be further back in their learning journey and may require previously learnt concepts to be retaught in order to build solid foundations to work on. Where gaps have been identified, some children will also require further interventions separate from the classroom and a small number of learning goals. Despite this, at Kidsgrove, we do not place a ‘glass-ceiling,’ on our children’s learning. At all times, we foster a love of learning amongst all children and a belief that they can aspire and achieve anything they put their minds to.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
We continuously strive to better ourselves and frequently share ideas and things that have been particularly effective. We take part in training opportunities and regional networking events, such as the NCETM Maths Hub work groups. White Rose online also provides CPD videos for teachers for different units they are teaching, which we actively encourage teachers to use whilst planning the learning for the children.
High Expecations and Mastery
All children are expected to succeed and make progress from their starting points.
Every class from EYFS to Y6 losely follow the White Rose long term plan of learning which is based on the National Curriculum. Lessons are be personalised using our bespoke lesson structures and address the individual needs and requirements for a class. All children secure longterm, deep and adaptable understanding of maths which they can apply in different contexts.
We implement our approach through high quality teaching delivering appropriately challenging work for all individuals. To support, we have a range of mathematical resources in classrooms including Numicon, Base10 and counters (concrete equipment). When children have grasped a concept using concrete equipment, images and diagrams are used (pictorial) prior to moving to abstract questions. Abstract maths relies on the children understanding a concept thoroughly and being able to use their knowledge and understanding to answer and solve maths without equipment or images.
Maths is taught and applied across the curriculum ensuring that skills taught in these lessons are applied in other subjects.
The Teaching of Fluency
We intend for all pupils to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
The Teaching of Reasoning
We intend for all pupils to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
The Teaching of Problem Solving
We intend for all pupils to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.
Automaticity
Automaticity is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice. At Kidsgrove automatcity is attained through learning, repetition, and practice. Each day pupils have an opportunity to revisit and practie learning from the last lesson, last week and last term.
A Vocabulary Rich Environment
We have created a vocabulary rich environment, where talk for maths is a key learning tool for all pupils. Pre teaching key vocabulary is a driver for pupil understanding and develops the confidence of pupils to explain mathematically.
Online Maths Tool
In order to advance individual children’s maths skills in school and at home, we utilise Times Tables Rock Stars for multiplication practise, application and consolidation.
In Key Stage 2 we use the online platform Mirodo. We used it to support SEN interventions, pre teaches and homework etc. Our learning platform adapts to every child’s needs. Every child works at a different pace and Mirodo helps to tailor learning for a personalised learning experience. Children also have access to video to support teaching and learning.