Maths

Intent – What is the purpose of our Maths curriculum?

At Tranmere Park Primary, we believe that Maths is a fundamental corner stone of our curriculum; it is designed to engage and captivate our children whilst providing them with the mathematical skills needed in later life. To ensure that all pupils reach their full potential, their individual needs and abilities are recognised and developed within a caring and supportive environment, in partnership with parents. The importance of feeling confident and fluent in maths and understanding its context and relevance to their daily lives is instilled from the beginning, in Early Years. This is achieved through a variety of ways: practical investigations, real world projects, role play areas and problem solving across the curriculum. These all play a part in: igniting our children’s interest and developing their mathematical fluency, problem solving and reasoning. The underlying imperative is to ensure that our children have access to a full curriculum which enables them to achieve confidence and competence – ‘mastery’ – rather than failing to develop the transferable skills required in the future.

Our Children will:

Our Teachers will:

• Largely progress through the curriculum at the same pace and differentiation will be achieved by emphasising a deep knowledge through individual support and intervention. • Be intrinsically motivated – they are eager to build on their existing knowledge, skills and understanding. • Ask inquisitive questions, pose ideas and eagerly tackle tricky problems – recognising the power that fluent mathematical knowledge provides. • Be resilient to mistakes and persevere when faced with a challenge; they are unflinching when tackling multi-step problems. • Achieve standards in mathematics that surpass the national expectations at each key developmental phase. Possess highly positive attitudes towards the subject and will be aspirational in their goals.

• Provide a progressive and challenging curriculum which is sequenced to ensure that new and personalised knowledge is taught in each session. • Identify gaps in understanding and swiftly overcome these with precise teaching. • Provide the children with a rich curriculum of carefully crafted lessons that ensures time for practise and consolidation. • Utilise precise questioning to test conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess pupils regularly to identify gaps in the understanding of those in their care. • Provide opportunities for our children to: think logically, develop quick recall, structure their work in a systematic way, pursue a line of enquiry and to work collaboratively thus fostering an awareness of and an enthusiasm for mathematics beyond the classroom.

 

Implementation – How do we do it?

The Learning Journey

A progressive thread of learning – underpinned by the ‘Mastery’ resources compiled by White Rose Maths – will be taught to all abilities. We use the Schemes of Learning published by White Rose in all classes. Our mixed age classes follow the appropriate Mixed Age Schemes of Learning. Our approach, TEAM, has 4 key strands: Test, Essential Learning, Advance and Master.

TEST – We begin with a pre-test, where gaps are identified, and Entry Points are defined resulting in the children being placed on a continuum of learning appropriate to the unit. This identifies whether children begin their work on the basics or whether they can begin from an ‘advanced point’. ESSENTIAL LEARNING – Here, children cover the ‘Basic’ knowledge required to achieve the end of unit objectives. Teaching includes the use of: pictures, models and concrete resources to ensure a deep understanding of concepts that are transferable to abstract scenarios in the mastery stage.  ADVANCE – Children are provided with the opportunity to practise the skill independently and grapple with mistakes to ensure that we continue to build resilience; as a result, our children are provided with challenges to further progress their learning and deepen their understanding. MASTER – Following the acquisition of the necessary fluency, ALL children will demonstrate ‘mastery’ of the knowledge via the completion of problem solving and reasoning challenges, which directly link to the real-world and evidence of this journey appears on working walls, under clear headings and within maths books. Finally, children complete a post-test to ascertain whether they have grasped the main teaching points in a particular lesson or unit of work, whether they have any misunderstandings that still need intervention and to ensure that they are ready to move on to the next learning point.

Assessment

– Short-term term assessments aim to assess the children’s learning informally on a lesson by lesson basis and are key to our curriculum. These could include observations of groups, analysis of whole class feedback, the marking of work or short tests, either in written or oral form.
– Medium-term assessments are completed at the end of a half-term and individual pupil results are placed on O-Track (a data management system). The EYFS class teacher also keeps a highlighted grid, to show progress within the age bands outlined in ‘Development Matters.’ These grids are kept in the assessment folders within classrooms.
– Long-term assessments assess our children against national expectations. These are also used to provide extra information about individual children’s attainment and progress so that the teacher can report to the next teacher and the child’s parent. Furthermore, data will be used by SLT to brief the governing body, the staff and the LEA on overall progress towards the school’s end of year targets.

Monitoring

The mathematics subject leader will use their expertise to support other teachers. Completing an annual deep dive into maths, they will undertake: learning walks, pupil and teacher interviews and will analyse the most recent data point to identify trends and variation. The monitoring cycle will evaluate current practice and the subject leader will be responsible for providing timely feedback, coaching and support.

Impact – What knowledge and skills are obtained?

At Tranmere Park, every pupil will:

• Make accelerated progress and will exceed national expectations, irrespective of background and entry points. • Believe that they are good at mathematics and will have the resilience required to undertake even the most challenging problem. • Undertake problem solving challenges as part of a targeted teaching sequence. • Complete a pre-test which identifies gaps in their understanding so that we are certain about the individual goals of each child. This way, we will endeavour to achieve good, if not outstanding, progress for all. • Have access to the concrete, practical resources or representations of number necessary to support a deep understanding of concepts. • Be exposed to meaningful, high-quality experiences and lessons that promote choice and independent thinking.

Further to the above, our Curriculum, at Tranmere Park, is designed to ensure that each child is a confident and successful learner who demonstrates our core values:

The Team Tranmere Way
Be Yourself		Be Your Best		Be Team Tranmere
Our children will learn to like who they are; they respect themselves and live their lives in their own way, regardless of the opinions of others.		Our children ‘give it everything they have got’ to achieve their full potential across the curriculum.		Our children are a part of a community and have respect for the resources and people in it and that surround it.
Our Learning Values and Behaviours
Self-Manager	Effective Participator	Independent Enquirer	Team Worker	Resourceful Thinker	Reflective Learner
Our children set their own goals and manage their own time, motivation and concentration.	Our children participate in lessons and persuade and encourage others to do so.	Our children set goals for their research with clear success criteria.	Our children understand that we are stronger together and implement this.	Our children are problem-solvers who can adapt to new or difficult situations.	Our children critically analyse their work ensuring future improvements.

Calculations policy
Following our Calculations evening for Parents, We have published our new Calculation Booklet which outlines how we approach the four main operations in maths. You can now view our calculations policy on its own page.

Maths at Home – Guidance for Parents

Maths at Home – 15 Top Tips

Helpful guidance for Pupils on how to tackle KS2 arithmetic questions (Paper A)