Maths
At Beech Grove we follow a mastery-led curriculum developed by the White Rose Maths Hub to ensure full coverage of the National Curriculum objectives.
Please click on the links below to view the relevant documents:
Y1-6 OverviewCalculations GuidanceMaths Progression
INTENT
Mathematics is an important creative discipline that helps us to understand and change the world. We want all pupils at Beech Grove to experience the beauty, power and enjoyment of mathematics and develop a sense of curiosity about the subject with a clear understanding.
At Beech Grove we foster positive 'can-do' attitudes and we promote the fact that ‘we can all do maths!’ We believe all children can achieve in mathematics, and teach for secure and deep understanding of mathematical concepts through manageable steps. We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning and provide challenge through rich, open-ended problems.
At our school, the majority of children will be taught the content from their year group only and will progress through the curriculum content at the same pace. They will spend time becoming true masters of content, applying and being creative with new knowledge in multiple ways.
Our curriculum is clearly sequenced to ensure pupils learn the right content at the right time. Each step builds carefully from the previous step, building on pupils’ prior knowledge to develop new skills, with nothing left out.
We aim for all pupils to:
- become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
- be able to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios.
- reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.
- have an appreciation of number and number operations, which enables mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately.
IMPLEMENTATION
Significant time is spent developing deep knowledge of the key ideas that are needed to underpin future learning. This ensures that all can master concepts before moving to the next part of the curriculum sequence, allowing no child to be left behind.
If a child fails to grasp a concept or procedure, this is identified quickly and early intervention ensures they are ready to move forward with the whole class in the next lesson.
The structure and connections within the mathematics are emphasised by teachers using accurate mathematical language, so that children develop deep learning that can be sustained. During lessons, children are given opportunities for discussion and are expected to use full sentences and mathematical language. There is a focus on the children leading discussion and exploring learning through the use of concrete manipulatives.
Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts.
Teachers use questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess children regularly to identify those requiring intervention, so that all children keep up.
Children’s explanations and their proficiency in articulating mathematical reasoning, with the precise use of mathematical vocabulary, are supported through the use of stem sentences provided by the teacher. These help the children to make connections and expose the structure of the maths.
Children have the opportunity to use manipulatives in every lesson to develop their understanding. Alongside this, children are encouraged to use pictorial representations. These representations can then be used to help reason and solve problems. Both concrete and pictorial representations support children’s understanding of abstract methods or concepts.
Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. These teaching blocks are broken down into smaller steps, to help develop children's conceptual understanding in a sequential way.
Each lesson provides the means for children to achieve greater depth, with children who are quick to grasp new content, being offered rich and sophisticated problems within the lesson, as appropriate.
Alongside White Rose Maths, teachers make use of other online resources such as NCETM and NRich to deliver the maths curriculum and ensure all pupils have the opportunity to develop their fluency, reasoning and problem solving skills.
To support children with their fluency in multiplication and division facts, TT Rockstars is used from Year 2 onwards. Children take part in phase and school competitions, and effort is celebrated in a whole school assembly.
We aim to ensure that links and connections between concepts are embedded and models and images underpin our teaching. As a school, any phase of learning will include the following elements to aid and clarify learning:
Concrete – pupils will have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand what they are doing.
Pictorial – pupils should then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations. These representations can then be used to reason and solve problems.
Abstract – with the foundations firmly laid, pupils should be able to move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.
To find out more about how we assess maths, please take a look are our assessment policy.
IMPACT
The impact of our mathematics curriculum is that children understand the relevance and importance of what they are learning in relation to real world concepts. Children know that maths is a vital life skill that they will rely on in many areas of their daily life.
Children have a positive view of maths due to learning in an environment where maths is promoted as being an exciting and enjoyable subject in which they can investigate and ask questions; they know that it is OK to be ‘wrong’ and that this can strengthen their learning.
Children are confident to ‘have a go’ and choose the equipment they need to help them to learn along with the strategies they think are best suited to each problem.
Our children have a good understanding of their strengths and areas for development in maths and what they need to do to improve.
Our maths books show that children take pride in their learning and that they are making good progress. This is reflected in the end of key stage 2 data which shows a significant and sustained improvement in outcomes since 2017.