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Welcome to the wonderful world of Maths at St Mary’s
There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dutch systems scientist
We love mathematics at St Mary’s and we want to equip our children and parents with the knowledge and understanding they need to support their maths learning journey. We want all children to achieve in maths including our disadvantaged children and those with SEND through a range of approaches, support and opportunities. We also use various apps and software to support our children’s learning within and without school. We subscribe to TT Rockstars and Doodle Maths to support learning. We do our very best to make maths relevant, fun, practical and meaningful so that our children start their educational journey, loving maths.
To improve our fluency skills we have provided our children with access to Times Tables Rockstars and Doodle Maths. Passwords and ID are provided at the beginning of the school year.
Best Websites to explore Maths and have fun …
BBC – Guardians: Defenders of Mathematica
Times tables practice – We all could be faster (more fluent) so why not have a go!
https://www.mathplayground.com/ This has a huge range of games to practice your maths knowledge and fluency
https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/index.html These games will really help children and have fun!
Rationale
Mathematics equips pupils with the uniquely powerful set of tools to understand and change the world. These tools include logical reasoning, problem solving skills and the ability to think in abstract ways.
Mathematics is important in everyday life. It is integral to all aspects of life and with this in mind at St Marys CE School we endeavour to ensure that children develop a positive and enthusiastic attitude towards mathematics that will stay with them throughout their lives.
It is vital that a positive attitude towards mathematics is encouraged amongst all of our pupils in order to foster confidence and achievement in a skill that is essential in our society. At St Marys we use the new National Curriculum for Mathematics (2014) as the basis of our mathematics programme. We are committed to ensuring that all pupils achieve mastery in the key concepts of mathematics, appropriate for their age group, in order that they make genuine progress and avoid gaps in their understanding which could become barriers to learning as they move through education. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.
Our Curriculum
To support the teaching of the National Curriculum, we use the planning based on White Rose Maths. This is also supported by materials from Third Space Learning.
https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/primary-resources/primary-sols/
https://thirdspacelearning.com/maths-resources/
What are we focusing on?
Following the pandemic we are making an additional effort to focus on the following areas in maths:
- This year we are focusing on developing fluency skills
- To secure key operations and apply these to reasoning questions
Curriculum knowledge for each year group
The age expectations for each year group are located here. However the following documents show the progression in maths and a summary of objectives for each year group.
Helping Parents – Year Group Documents
This is our support initiative to enable our families to support their children in maths. As part of this we provide further information for parents. This has been in response to parent asking how they can support their child in maths and how calculations are written in each year group. This dovetails with our teaching and support programmes to ensure our children reach their potential and aim high to try and master maths! The documents are provided below and sent to parents at the beginning of the year.
Foundations Stage Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6
Our Curriculum
Vocabulary Progression
The vocabulary documents below are an indicator of the new vocabulary that will be introduced throughout the school year. It is recommended that parents also look at the previous year that your child is currently in to see what vocabulary the children are building on.
How well are you doing? – Quizzes
Explore some of these quizzes to see if you can answer the questions. If you get any wrong – ask a grown up or a friend to help you understand.
https://www.educationquizzes.com/ks2/maths/
https://www.educationquizzes.com/ks2/times-tables/
Helpful websites to support your child…
maths-key-objectives Multiplication website
times tables challenge These are now printed in our children’s Key Stage 2 Planners so parents can monitor their child’s progress.
Parents might want help with maths. Here are a few videos that may help you.
Multiplication Tables Check
We continually assess our children throughout their education journey at St Mary’s so we can help our children progress. In Year 4 there is a Statutory Check to see how well children have learnt times tables. Times tables are a bedrock of maths and knowing times tables enables you to access so many aspects of maths, quickly and effectively. Here is a small video to find out more about the Multiplication Tables Check.
Parent Support
Parents are often asking how they can support their child in maths. We have a range of Knowledge Organisers that you can use to support your child’s learning and home learning. Please go this link to find these on our website. You can also use these help sheets, which your children should be familiar with….
Supporting all children to access challenging maths….
Whilst we provide our children with a lot of physical manipulatives to reinforce concepts and enable children to process concepts and challenges, we also look to online alternatives. By providing our children access to these online manipulatives, children can access challenging work and it allows children to reinforce their understanding through visuals. This aids in challenge and helps in being aspirational for our children and helping children process complex or abstract concepts.