Mathematics

Mathematics is taught on a daily basis. Teaching methods include discussions between teacher and pupil, discussions between pupils, practical work, group activities, individual work, practice of basic skills and routines and investigative work. Each lesson begins with oral work and mental calculation; this is followed by the main teaching input and pupil activities. The main teaching points are consolidated in a plenary session in which pupils are given time to review, reflect, discuss and evaluate their work and learning.  A progress assessment is carried out on a weekly basis which informs teachers of pupils who may need additional support with certain areas within the mathematics curriculum.

The school use the National Curriculum Programme of study as the basis for the teaching of Mathematics across the whole school.  This is heavily extended through additional mastery materials including Power Maths, White Rose Hub schemes of learning, NRich, Shanghai Maths textbooks, Testbase online, RM Easi-Maths and the Maths Hub specialist resources for embedding a mastery approach.

Our Mastery Position Statement

At St Filumena’s Catholic Primary School, we have adopted a mastery approach to the teaching of maths whereby children are given a deeper and broader understanding of the key mathematical concepts rather than being accelerated quickly through new content. The subject leader has trained as a DfE approved Maths Specialist Teacher and the school is working in partnership with a DfE funded mastery project with 15 other schools involved (Painsley Maths Hub Lead).  A National Leader in Education is supporting the school, alongside Specialist Leaders in Education through the SSIF project work.   All staff have been trained through staff meetings, external CPD and supported in maths professional development meetings/coaching sessions and through modelling lessons.  The DfE recommended Power Maths Textbook Scheme has been purchased for January 2019 and teachers are on the beginning of the journey with using this scheme to support teaching and learning development.

 What you will typically see:

• The large majority of our pupils progress through the curriculum content at the same pace.  Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support with pre-teaching and rapid intervention.
• Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed conceptual and procedural variation in the Power Maths resources builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts in tandem.
• Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge, and assess pupils regularly to identify those requiring intervention so that all pupils keep up.
• Teachers will use the concrete, pictorial and abstract approach (CPA) to ensure that procedural and conceptual understanding are developed simultaneously.
• Emphasis placed on ‘learning’ through reasoning, developing multiple strategies and concepts towards understanding.
• Challenge for pupils grasping concepts quickly is provided through depth and breadth of experience.
• Daily opportunities to reason and problem solve.

Curriculum map

With the starting point of the National Curriculum Programmes of Study, alongside the White Rose Maths Hub planning exemplification and the Power Maths scheme, pupils spend longer on key mathematical concepts in number, those children who grasp the concepts more quickly are given opportunities to deepen their knowledge and improve their reasoning skills rather than accelerating on to new curriculum content.

Each class displays the relevant sections of the whole school calculation policy to ensure progression in skills and consistency of approach in arithmetic concepts (see calculation policy).

Lesson Design

Teachers begin lessons with a ‘hook’ to engage children in learning. This sets the objective within a real-life context problem (picture, scenario, story).  The teacher uses modelling and demonstrating through images/manipulatives/ ICT using clear mathematical vocabulary.  Children have the opportunity to investigate new learning with the use of concrete apparatus and visuals to enforce the concept. Children have the opportunity to practise the new skills using carefully crafted and varied questioning. The problem will be revisited and children can then apply their new learning to solving the problem.  The children will have the opportunity to feed back their learning.  Those children who are ‘rapid graspers’ will either be challenged with deeper thinking questions, asked to show their understanding in different representations or through writing own word problems/ explanations/application of skills.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is explicitly taught at the start of each unit of learning.   All pupils have access to the vocabulary as it is displayed on the working wall, in books/on tables.  The definition and application of the vocabulary is modelled continuously by the teacher/teaching assistant throughout the unit of work.  There is a high expectation for pupils to use, model and apply the vocabulary in their verbal and written reasoning.

Differentiation

‘Differentiation’ will now be seen by children working on differing complexities of problems within the same objective. ‘Rapid graspers’ will have challenging problems to solve to ensure that they continue to make progress. There will be some children who are using practical equipment for longer in order to support learning. Our aim is that the gap between mathematical attainment in our classes is closed, with a particular focus on accelerating the progress of pupils to enable them to meet their personalised attainment targets.

Challenge and extension for ‘rapid graspers’

• Reasoning challenges
• Enquiry tasks
• Broader enrichment tasks in a range of contexts
• Opportunities to write explanations
• Opportunities to explain to others, including specialist Peer Mentor roles
• Opportunities to generate own questions and problems – innovate
• Representation of a concept in a variety of ways to show conceptual understanding

Interventions

• There is great emphasis on Assessment for Learning at all points within the lesson by Teacher/Teaching Assistant and activities adapted during the lesson if necessary.  Pupils are identified for rapid intervention or pre-teaching.
• Targeted support – afternoon by some TAs.
• Next day/same day 1:1/ small group intervention for children who have not grasped concepts.
• Pre-teaching to targeted children before new concepts are introduced.

Tracking Progress

At the beginning and end of each teaching sequence, teachers informally assess pupils using the pre-assessment and Power Maths end of unit assessments to inform their future planning/intervention support.  At the end of a term, children’s learning will be assessed using White Rose Hub/NFER assessments through questions and problems that require the pupils to remember, understand, apply, analyse and evaluate their knowledge and skills. The results will be kept by the teacher and used to inform termly pupil progress meetings. A judgement of whether the children are on track to achieve ARE in maths will be made each term and recorded in Assessment Manager Tracking (SIMs).  This attainment/progress will also be measured against their personalised target.

Marking and Feedback

• Targeted written marking, questioning and verbal feedback takes place by the class teacher on a daily basis.
• Depth marking is completed at least once a week (or as driven by pupil need) by the class teacher, with next steps given in readiness for pupil response.
• Verbal feedback is constantly used to progress the learning in the lessons.
• Mini-plenaries and modelled intervention are used to address misconceptions.
• There is a high focus on self-assessment and peer-assessment across the school, as referenced by the MCTEM research project, that pupils marking and reflecting on their own learning has the most significant impact on their outcomes.
• Scaffolded and targeted questioning is used by teachers and teaching assistants to enhance learning outcomes for all.

Resources

Each class is equipped with maths base boxes, which are readily available during each lesson.  These base boxes contain a variety of year group-appropriate manipulatives that children can choose to use to support their learning.  Examples of these resources include place value counters, dice, bead strings, arrow cards, linking cubes, counting objects and laminated sheets of part-part whole, place value charts and bar models. 

Intent, Implementation and Impact of Maths at St Filumena’s Catholic Primary

Intent:

The intention of the maths curriculum at St Filumena’s Catholic Primary Catholic Primary School is that children are taught to become competent and independent mathematicians. The ‘mastery approach’ to teaching maths is the underlying principle of Mathematics Mastery. Instead of learning mathematical procedures by rote, we want pupils to build a deep conceptual understanding of concepts which will enable them to apply their learning in different situations.  Through mathematical talk, children will develop the ability to articulate, discuss and explain their thinking. We will provide the children with the necessary resources to allow all children to access the curriculum and encourage them to use this where appropriate to explain their logic and reasoning.

Implementation:

At St Filumena’s Catholic Primary, we recognise that in order for pupils to progress to deeper and more complex problems, children need to be confident and fluent across each yearly objective. We follow the Maths Hub White Rose schemes of learning to ensure that the coverage for the year is completed. As a mixed age school, we use these plans to ensure that all objectives are covered for each year group and that we are planning to the three key principles to deepen children’s understanding.

We use three key principles to deepen pupils’ understanding:

1. Conceptual understanding

2. Language and communication

3. Mathematical thinking

Within the Maths hub schemes of learning, each National Curriculum objective is broken down into fluency, reasoning and problem solving; our teachers use the learning challenges to teach for mastery - an approach to extend and deepen the understanding of pupils within each year group. Our teaching staff uses this document in conjunction with a range of other useful resources such as Abacus, NCETM, NRich and Maths No Problem.

Impact:

As a multi-academy company we are fortunate to be able to call on the support of 15 other Maths leads and specialist teachers. Through moderation of planning, lessons and books, we can be sure that progress is made across all year groups. If progress is not being made, support is immediate and steps provided to ensure all pupils achieve and make progress.

Summative assessment takes place at the end of each term and children’s progress and attainment is discussed with senior leaders in pupil progress meetings. Formative assessment takes place on a daily basis and teachers adjust planning accordingly to meet the needs of their class.  The teaching of mathematics is monitored by leaders through lesson observations and book scrutinies.