Maths

Fun facts about Mrs Fletcher: 

• I am a Mom to two children who I enjoy spending lots of time with. 
• I drive a Mini, which I love and my favourite hobbies are shopping, reading and walking. 
• Going on holiday abroad and in the UK is something else I really enjoy and I have visited many foreign countries. 
• My favourite colour is red and I have a real eclectic taste in music. 
• I once entered and won a poetry writing competition on Newsround and my poem was read out during one of their daily programmes.
• I love my job in teaching and how everyday provides me with new and different challenges. Teaching Maths is one of my favourite parts of my day.

  

Subject vision: 

At Cooper and Jordan we believe that every child should be given the opportunity to succeed and make progress, in Maths, from their starting point. We plan and deliver our curriculum around fluency, problem solving and reasoning. This involves the children learning and acquiring skills that allow them to understand Mathematical concepts and systems that they can then apply in a range of contexts and also, giving the children the opportunity to solve problems and reason within different contexts. We do this through a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach, to enable all learners to access the curriculum and make links between all areas of Mathematics. Allowing the children to see how important Maths is, in our world and giving them a chance to apply their learning to every day, ‘real-life concepts’ is also integral to our practice and helps towards them becoming lifelong learners and builds their enthusiasm and excitement for Mathematics.   

 

Our key principles for Mathematics:

1. For every child to feel confident, enthusiastic about Mathematics and to build a resilient approach to lessons.
2. For planning and delivery of lessons to be carefully considered to meet the needs of the children and build on previous knowledge and skills.
3. To ensure that key concepts and skills are revisited regularly to help to secure the foundations of Maths that can then be built upon.
4. Staff use formative and summative assessments to plan and teach to address children's needs and facilitate opportunities for maximum progress.
5. To provide the children with exciting opportunities that really ignite passion for Maths and give them chance to see how important it is to their lives.

Curriculum: 

The Mathematics programme of study is set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (2021) and National Curriculum (2014).

EYFS:

In the Early Years Foundation Stage, we teach mathematics through the mathematics strand of the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.

Ongoing mathematics experiences and opportunities are planned from the objectives set out for ‘Number’ and ‘Numerical Patterns,’ which underpin the curriculum planning for children aged 3-5 at Cooper and Jordan.

The experiences that we provide ensure that children develop a secure understanding of the number system. By the end of the Reception year, they will:

 

ELG: Number

• Children at the expected level of development will:

• Have a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number;
• Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5;
• Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.

ELG: Numerical Patterns

• Children at the expected level of development will:

• Verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system;
• Compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity;
• Explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, double facts and how quantities can be distributed equally.

KS1 and KS2:

The Primary National Curriculum for Mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
• Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
• Solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

With this in mind, our programme of study for Mathematics clearly sets out what will be taught and learned at each point in the year for all year groups. We understand that a carefully planned coherent curriculum will enable pupils to know more and remember more.

 

Assessment: 

As our aim is for every child to make progress and achieve their potential in Maths, we have a robust and consistent timetable of assessments in place across school. By using a combination of formative and summative assessments, we ensure that the planning and learning opportunities are tailored to the children’s point in learning, therefore facilitating further progress.We also use Maths toolkits to show smaller steps of progress for children that need support to achieve age related expectations. All maths lessons/activities are designed and planned to include all children through a range of approaches. Lessons are planned to facilitate the best possible outcome for all children within the class.

 

Formative Assessment (AFL): 

During the teaching of each unit of Mathematics, children’s ability to recall and calculate, as well as their ability to reason and problem solve,is assessed formatively by their teacher. A range of on-going assessment activities are carried out in various forms, including, live marking, marking and then editing of planning to ensure lessons are building on the children’s point of learning, targeted questioning, regular key knowledge checks, in the form of ‘fluency fitness’ activities and class discussions, which inform teachers about pupils’ understanding and needs. The assessment tools used are appropriate for the age of the children and nature of the current learning.We also adapt our live teaching as we go along to ensure every child is making progress at their own rate and are moved on when they are ready.

 

Summative Assessment:

On a half termly basis, teachers make a summative judgement relating to children’s knowledge and understanding of Mathematical concepts, as well as their ability to reason and problem solve within the associated context, this can be done using a range of evidence bases - books, guided work, end of unit tests if required and daily records of learning. This is recorded on our own school tracking system. At a designated point, towards the end of each term, every child completes an assessment to show where they are in terms of application to a test paper. This raw data, as well as teacher assessment, is again inputted onto our tracking system. Following this, each year group attends a pupil progress meeting with a senior leader to discuss progress for their set, groups and individuals, against their end of year target and previous term’s data. This ensures seamless tracking of progress and attainment, whilst enabling the teacher to easily identify knowledge gaps and misconceptions. Toolkits are also constantly monitored and new targets set to ensure that all children are making progress, from their start point towards age related expectations.

 

 Statutory Assessment and Reporting:

In addition to the formative and summative assessment tools discussed above, teachers of children in years 2 and 6 also complete a National Curriculum Standard Assessment Test (SAT) of their learning in the relevant key stage. At Key Stage 1, teachers also make a summative judgement relating to the attainment of each child in their class, based on the current teacher assessment framework and the child’s SAT score, and submit this to the local authority. SATS results for both KS1 and KS2 are reported to parents in the end of year report.

 

Trips and enrichment:

With our firm belief that knowledge is transferable, our pupils are given every opportunity to participate in a wide range of learning experiences beyond their classroom. These experiences include trips to museums, theatres, adventure centres and have invited in guest speakers. They are also given regular opportunities to participate in school and national competitions to encourage more positive attitudes towards Mathematics. Cultural Capital is the essential knowledge that children need to prepare them for their future success – in the world of work, in relationships forged throughout life and as a valued contributor to society. When beginning their primary school journey in the EYFS, many children arrive to school with different and sometimes more limited experiences than others. Therefore, our aim is to give children the knowledge and skills to prepare them for what comes next in their lives. This includes the relevant vocabulary needed throughout their education and the opportunity to link maths to real-world problem solving.  

We have done various in house activities to help to raise the profile, engagement and enthusiasm around Mathematics. During lockdown a whole themed week of work was set, across school, from EYFS up to year 6, Maths and English work was completed around a key text. This worked really well, guidance was sent out to staff to ensure tasks were completed that met age related expectations and objectives meaning that progression in skills and application could be seen across the school.

Linking Maths to everyday life really came into its own during ‘My Money Week’ which we have planned and delivered on several occasions. Lots of work has been completed that links Maths to real life and around the world, including each class running its own bank and children receiving ‘money’ as a replacement for house points that week!

Last year, 21-22, we planned and hosted a Maths themed day, where we invited a visitor into school, who ran workshops for the whole school based around ‘Number Fun - songs for Maths’. The whole day was a series of fun, exciting and engaging activities based on Maths and we now use the website in our lessons.

We regularly attend Maths afternoons, run by a local secondary school, for a number of children in each year group from year 3 up to year 6, these run throughout the year and give the children opportunity to visit the school, take part in some challenging Maths problems, with children from other local primary schools, whilst being taught by a Maths specialist. When we purchased TTRockstars, a themed morning was held in school, staff all dressed as rockstars and celebrated a big launch of the website with a whole school assembly and gave every class an opportunity to log on and get started. Since then we have had various battles, between pupils and staff and groups of children, awarding winners of competitions and overall evidence of great progress. We have also purchased Numbots, which has been well received by children in Key Stage 1 and has high levels of engagement. 

This year, 22-23, we are planning on hosting a Maths vocab day, where everyone comes as a Maths word that is linked to their age related curriculum and are hoping to invite in people who use maths in their jobs to give talks on it’s importance and relevance.

Pupil Voice: 

 

Oscar said "I like doing adding and when we use the counters to help us."

 

Amelia said "I like that I can find out about things that help me outside of school like money."

 

Jensen said "I love that I am learning things that will be useful later for me to get a job."

 

Lilly said "I enjoy finding out about division and using all of the operations to help check our work."

 

Theo said "I enjoy working our problems because it helps me in real life to think through issues and work out solutions."

 

Lola said "We get to do lots of games at the end of lessons which make learning really good fun and help me to remember what we have been learning."