At St Scholastica’s, we want our children to enjoy and thrive in mathematics. We want them to be independent and ambitious mathematical learners so that their understanding is secure, supporting them initially so that they a well prepared for secondary school, but ultimately assisting them in whatever career paths they choose and in their daily lives. We want our children to be confident mathematicians who have inquisitive minds, are unafraid of mistakes and have an interest in self-improvement.
Maths is taught on a daily basis following the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum, predominantly through the White Rose scheme. We adopt a ‘Maths Mastery’ approach whereby all children, regardless of starting point, will maximise their academic achievement.
In years 1 to 6, the use of White Rose planning is adopted to ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of all children and our mastery approach, it allows opportunity for revisiting and retention of previous learning, a clear sequence of ‘small-steps’ of learning and robust progression of skills and challenge.
The children learning visually through a variation of concrete, pictorial and abstract approaches, helping them understand mathematical connections between different representations.
The children are stretched through mathematical language and questioning so that pupils can discuss, explain and debate the maths they are doing and so teaching staff can grow the children’s mathematical understanding.
Our Maths Mastery approach means that all children experience success and achieve the learning intention. Learning is differentiated in a variety of ways to meet the needs of each specific child.
Each ‘small step’ within the sequence is displayed on the maths working wall, with appropriate vocabulary and modelling, so that children can know that they have been successful in their own learning and can see, and explain, the links to previous and future mathematical understanding.