'God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving.' Pope Francis
Maths
Curriculum Intent
The Maths curriculum is based on the National Curriculum and delivered using the White Rose Education maths scheme. All children will be exposed to maths through play in foundation stage and through structured daily lessons that provide opportunities for each individual to become a confident mathematician. Children will develop a strong sense of number, developing the skills to manipulate and reason with numbers and their composition. They will be exposed to maths in different contexts, developing their problem solving skills and applying mathematical knowledge to every day situations. They will be able to work with increasing fluency and be well prepared for the demands of the curriculum as they progress in their school careers and beyond.
Curriculum Implementation
Children are taught maths through a daily lesson focusing on the core themes outlined in the National Curriculum: Number, Place Value & Algebra, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication & Division, Fractions, Decimals & Percentages, Ratio & Proportion, Measurement, Geometry, Statistics, Mental Strategies and Problem Solving and Reasoning.
Click on the curriculum overview below to find out what your child will be expected to achieve.
White Rose National Curriculum Overview
Through White Rose Education and underpinned by NCETM materials, children are taught in a sequence which builds on a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach. Children become familiar with numbers through tangible representations, being able to subitise (know quantities without counting) confidently and recognise numbers in different contexts. Through concrete materials such as Numicon and Rekenreks, they are able to manipulate numbers, understanding their cardinality (how numbers fit together), which helps them form early reasoning skills. Once secure in their sense of number, children will progress to generating their own pictorial representations of number (e.g. dots, number lines). Abstract representation is introduced once children have a strong grasp of numbers and their relationships when notation is introduced (i.e 3 + 6 = 9).
More complex calculations are introduced following our visual calculations policy. Click on the links below to access the school's visual calculations policies:
Subtraction Calculation Policy
Multiplication Calculation Policy
Fractions & Decimals Calculation Policy
Mastering Number
At Holy Family, children follow the NCETM Mastering Number materials with the focus on counting, automaticity and subitising. Children are taught about the relationships between and within numbers and understand with complete security the composition of numbers from 1 - 10 and beyond. This is the core of the maths curriculum in Foundation Stage but is a supplementary maths session in Years 1 & 2 alongside the daily maths session taught through White Rose Education.
In Key Stage 2, children benefit from a daily arithmetic session, again additional to the daily maths lesson. The arithmetic session provides an opportunity for children to develop and rehearse their fluency in maths, being able to work with the 4 operations with increasing agility while applying their knowledge of number facts, patterns and relationships. Children enjoy improving their weekly scores in arithmetic assessments, which test their agility and recall.
Reasoning & Problem Solving are integral to the maths curriculum and we practice a 3-way planning approach which ensures children have a balance of opportunity to fluency, problem solving and reasoning.
Reasoning is the skill of thinking through the relationships between numbers in various contexts. Children are able to explain what they understand about numbers, how they interlink and patterns they can discern. In maths lessons, we create the environment where children can explore and question one another's thinking to test their own understanding. Through Kagan structures, children are accustomed to working collaboratively to indulge their curiosity and discover new learning through reasoning activities.
Problem solving is provided through real life scenarios and gives children the opportunity to apply their mathematical understanding to everyday situations. Again, these are linked to related learning and enables children to consolidate and reinforce this learning.
Curriculum Impact
Children should be enthusiastic and skilled mathematicians, able to apply their knowledge of number to real life and varied contexts. They will be confident in their abilities and understand the value of maths and how these skills can equip them for many aspects of life within and beyond school.
Children will develop a solid grasp of mathematical vocabulary, rooted in secure understanding of the relationship between operations and mathematical processes. They will be able to explain their thinking, making accurate use of learned vocabulary at an age appropriate level.
They will be able to reason and problem solve, using their understanding of number in the context of measure, shape and space. Children will be fearless in their problem solving approach and relish the challenges to explain their thoughts and reasoning, showing resilience and perseverance.
The Maths Curriculum Lead is Miss Kelly