Intent

At St Mark's CE Primary School, we provide an ambitious, broad and connected maths curriculum. Pupils understand the purpose behind their learning and to apply their knowledge to their everyday lives.  Discreet lessons are sequentially planned and alongside weekly maths challenges at children’s own level.

We focus on pupils acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject:

• Time is spent teaching the fundamentals, e.g. number and place value, in a step-by-step way to allow children to consolidate their understanding. 
• We place emphasis on the use of concrete resources and pictorial representations at all ages, to enable children to fully understand concepts and principals, before and alongside being presented with abstract calculations and questions.  
• Domains are revisited throughout each school year, and from one year group to the next to reinforce the learning. 
• We provide teaching and opportunities to practice so that pupils improve their fluency.
• We ensure children develop the necessary skills to enable them to think deeply about maths, acquiring maths knowledge that can be recalled quickly, transferred, and applied in different contexts.
• We expect pupils to reason and problem solve regularly in each domain block.    

Implementation 

In the Early Years, mathematical knowledge is taught through play, small groups or one to one and in short whole class inputs.  The learning is revisited regularly through song, stories and games. 

In Key Stage 1, Maths is taught as 5 daily lessons of 45 minutes. This is taught as a whole class with differentiation for the two-year groups.  In addition to these lessons, there is counting and talking about time throughout the day and weekly maths challenges. 

In Key Stage 2, Maths is taught as 5 daily lessons of 1 hour.  In addition to this, there is time to develop fluency maths challenges.  This is taught as a whole class with different expectations for each of the year groups.  Some lessons are taught as single year groups to ensure all areas of learning are covered. 

To ensure we offer comprehensive, incremental and recursive coverage of the National Curriculum for Maths, we closely follow the White Rose mixed year curriculum plans.  These have been devised by experts and are constantly reviewed and improved.  We believe that by following this curriculum we give our children the greatest opportunity for mathematical success.  In the EYFS, the children also follow the White Rose scheme and learn maths through a mixture of direct teacher-led activities and self-directed time, with trained adults on hand to enhance their mathematical thinking through play and exploration.  The children learn a broad range of maths in line with the Early Years Framework.

Pupil misconceptions are promptly identified and addressed through same-day interventions and targeted pre-teaching, ensuring students are fully supported to succeed in their learning.

Children complete termly summative assessments in Mathematics, encompassing both arithmetic and problem-solving/reasoning skills. Assessment data is carefully analysed alongside teacher assessment judgements, and the progress of each pupil is reviewed collaboratively in pupil progress meetings involving the Executive Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher, SENCo and class teachers. This ensures that targeted plans are implemented to support every child in reaching their full potential in Mathematics. Assessments (both summative and formative) also inform teachers of whole-class strengths and areas for development.

A structured programme of monitoring is in place to ensure consistency and progression in learning across the school. This includes:

• Professional discussions
• Book scrutiny
• Pupil voice 
• Learning walks