Maths Within The Moorsway Federation

Intent

We strongly believe that all children can learn and flourish at maths. We follow the mastery approach to allow for all children, including those with SEND to access the learning in the classroom and are supported to develop a clear understanding of maths being investigated.  Our aim is to provide children with a deep understanding of the concepts to build their confidence to enable them to approach a range of mathematical problems in the wider world. We encourage our learners to persevere when they encounter challenges and to reflect on their mathematical decisions to transform them into the best mathematician they can be.

Implementation

Within The Moorsway Federation, we have chosen to follow Mastering Number in EYFS and The White Rose Curriculum for KS1 and KS2. This provides a secure structure for progressions and sequencing for staff and ensures consistency throughout our federation. Our lessons include a range of resources and representations from various other sources, for example  NCETM, NRich to build the children’s knowledge and skills within different styles of questions. We recognise that pupils need to develop a deep understanding and confidence of these yearly objectives to prepare them to progress next year. The scheme also ensures that our maths teaching is aligned with the 3 core aims of the National Curriculum, fluency, reasoning and problem solving. 

As a Federation we are committed to setting high expectations of all our pupils and therefore ensure that our maths lessons are accessible to all children. The Quality First Teaching style to our lessons emphasises on high quality, inclusive teaching for everyone.

We achieve this in lessons by using a range of the following:

• C-P-A Representation - children begin a concept exploring and experimenting with concrete objects before transferring this knowledge and understanding into pictorial representations. This provides them with a deeper understanding of a concept before being able to represent it in an abstract way.
• Problem Solving - is integral within every lesson, all children are developing their independence to be able to identify the mathematical skill required to solve a problem by making connections within their learning 
• Reasoning - is included within all lessons and we encourage children to speak about their thoughts applying previous knowledge to support their thinking and to challenge ideas. We are developing a Federation set of mathematical sentence stems and vocabulary for each class to continue the development of this.

• Fluency - our aim is for our children to have a rapid and accurate recall of basic number facts and procedures which enables them to develop a more complex understanding of maths procedures. Within our daily retrieval children are provided with opportunities to make connections within counting and multiplication orally, using a range of representations which in time will result in an increased level of fluency.
• Questioning - adults use questioning to develop and assess the children’s understanding throughout lessons. This enables all children to make progress by misconceptions being addressed quickly and challenges given which require a deeper understanding of the concept.
• Manipulatives - children are able to access a range of manipulatives throughout lessons and are independent in selecting appropriate manipulatives for the lesson.
• Positive attitude - we create an excitement around maths and teach children that ‘everyone can do maths’ and that everyone is actively engaged within maths
• Pre teach - some children benefit from a short pre teach before a new concept which provides them with the confidence to attempt new concepts alongside their peers.
• Intervention - through a range of assessments some children are supported in small groups by a teacher or TA to address a misconception or to improve their fluency skills which enables all children to access the lesson.
• Calculation Methods - teachers follow the schools calculation policy to build on prior methods to give children a deeper understanding of how the written methods work.
• Challenges - all children have the opportunity to challenge their thinking by problem solving and reasoning about questions. Particularly in KS2 children are more reasonable for their own learning and can select questions of increasing complexity within the lesson.
• Retrieval - lessons begin with an element of retrieval practice. This could be in the form of pre-tasks, questions linked to prior knowledge from a day a go to previous year group objectives. 
• Oracy - teachers model mathematical language and children then apply this in their own peer discussions
• I do, We do, You do approach - children observe a teacher completing a question, where the teacher verbally goes through their thought processes. Then children have a similar question alongside their teacher and peer before tackling their own questions independently. 

Impact

Our planning follows the White Rose overviews for mixed age planning and adapted for our unique class structures. Planning is adapted constantly for the requirements of the children based on Assessment for Learning (AfL). Prior to a new unit our Elicitation tasks that are linked to the Ready to Progress statements and previous learning provide evidence for where children are and if they require pre teaching before the unit. AfL happens within the lessons and children are able to move onto more complex tasks where needed as well as summative assessments in terms of final task assessments. This ensures that all children are able to make progress within the lessons.