Intent- What are the aims for children in our school?

At Leigh St John’s, we aim to provide our pupils with the foundations they need in Mathematics to develop an understanding of the world around them. We understand the importance of children being able to become fluent in a range of key skills, to develop their understanding and reasoning skills relating to mathematical content and to also be able to use this understanding to think creatively and solve problems. Throughout their journey through our school, we aim to develop children’s conceptual understanding of a range of mathematical ideas, to ensure that they have a strong sense of number and feel confident identifying relationships, spotting patterns and seeing connections between current and prior learning.

Implementation- What does this look like?

Our Mathematics curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced to ensure that all pupils should make connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. We also ensure that children are given time to revisit previous learning to further develop their retrieval skills. At Leigh St John’s, we believe that to ensure children are able to acquire a deep and sustained understanding of key mathematical skills, they need to be given the opportunity to explore concepts using a concrete, pictorial and symbolic approach. By following this approach, children are able to embed their understanding of the different strands of mathematics, so that as they progress through school, they can draw upon previous knowledge and use these foundations to develop their understanding further.

One of the more recent changes to our approach is that we have changed the order that we teach the curriculum. this has been done to give the children the best possible chance of embedding key learning into their long-term memories so that they can apply it as they move through the school. These changes were made following all members of staff receiving year group specific CPD from an experienced maths consultant. We then worked collaboratively to refine our teaching approach for the Autumn term. As the year progresses, we will refine our medium term planning to ensure that we have complete coverage of the curriculum in the order that we believe gives our children the best chance to be successful. 

As they reach Year 6, we encourage children to use this confidence and previous understanding to choose efficient methods and strategies when solving a variety of problems. This flexible approach to their thinking helps them to apply their knowledge in a variety of situations and prepares them for the next step of their educational journey. 

Mathematics Overview for St John's

Click below to see how we ensure the Mathematic's objectives are taught throughout the year. We are currently reviewing the order that we deliver our maths curriculum so each throughout the year the documents below will be updated. 

Impact- What is the impact of our curriculum?

At Leigh St John's we aim for all of our children to move through the national curriculum programmes of study at broadly the same pace. We aim for each child to become fluent, be able to reason and to solve problems in each yearly objective. However, our staff use their professional judgement and ongoing assessment strategies to make decision as whether pupils' are able to move on. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on. Whereas, pupils who grasp concepts rapidly are challenged through rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content.

Formative Assessment: 

Our teachers assess pupil understanding through a range of AFL strategies in every lesson. Pupils will receive feedback on the work verbally during lessons, through the use of both self and peer assessment along with feedback from the host of educational apps that we have available in school. This allows both the teachers and the pupils to be confident in identifying whether they need further support or greater challenge.

Low Stakes Quizzing:

Throughout our curriculum we use a range of low stake quizzes and retrieval activities to provide children with the opportunity to embed their learning into long-term memory. These can range from questions set during registration; tasks set using online platforms such as Century Tech and LBQ; and the use of end of unit/block assessment sheets produced by White Rose Maths. 

Summative Assessment: 

We have 3 assessment cycles within each year. One for each of the terms and towards the end of these cycles, our pupils in Years 1, 3, 4  and 5 complete the standardised NFER assessments. Pupils in Year 2 and Year 6 complete past key stage assessments at the same time. These assessments are used to identify pupils who may need further support and they capture both progress and attainment against National Curriculum objectives. 

Monitoring: 

We regularly monitor and the impact and quality of our teaching and curriculum design through learning walks, pupil interviews and discussions around books during whole staff CPD. 

At Leigh St John’s C.E Primary School we are passionate about making maths exciting and accessible to all. We pride ourselves on teaching to children’s unique needs. Children are given sufficient time, appropriate resources (models and images), and opportunities to learn new concepts at their own pace. Some children may need more time to fully embed new learning and consolidate skills. Once they have mastered this, they will be challenged to apply their new leaning in a range of contexts, through our ‘Twists’ approach. For instance, if children have been learning about multiplication and division, they may be asked to solve true or false statements, work out always, sometimes, never statements and to find the odd one out

Example of Twists in Year 3/4

1. If I know 3 x 8= 24. What other multiplication and division facts do I know?

2. How many multiplication and division sentences can you write that have the number 72 in them?

3. Always, sometimes, never - An even number that is divisible by 3 is also divisible by 6

4. Write the number 30 as the product of 3 numbers. Can you do it in different ways?

6. Andy says ‘I can use my three times table to work out 180 ÷ 3’. Explain what Andy could do to work out this calculation

Maths is all about making connections, recognising patterns and developing number sense. For example, if I know 1 + 9 = 10 then I also know 10 + 90 = 100 and that 100+ 900 = 1000. We encourage children to say what they see, discuss patterns; so that they have a ‘feel’ for number, use numbers flexibly, select strategies, think about numbers and generally have number sense useful for solving problems. To help your child develop number sense at home, please see the suggestions and resources available below. (How to support your child at home).

At school we create carefully crafted continuums of skills to progressively teach children the fundamental skills of mathematics. We follow the White Rose Hub sequence of teaching fluency, reasoning and problem-solving skills and increasingly allow them to apply their new learning in a range of contexts. Please see below.

We also use the concrete, pictorial, abstract (CPA) approach to teaching maths, which helps children to build it, physically manipulate it, draw it and eventually visualize it without the need for equipment. This is a highly effective approach to teaching that develops a deep and sustainable understanding of maths.

We have seen the important role that technology can play in consolidating children's understanding; therefore, we have invested in a number of educational apps that children access regularly in lessons, during intervention time and at home. These apps, such as TTR Rockstars, Numbots, IXL, Maths Shed and Century Tech, allow teachers to meet the individual needs of our pupils so that they can cosolidate their understanding and feel more confident about their learning. 

Useful Apps

• Squeebles:Addition & Subtraction; Maths Bingo; Fractions; Tell the time; Division; Multiplication
• Hit the button
• Maths champions
• Maths slide: addition and subtraction
• Maths slide: multiplication and division
• Maths slide:100 – KS1
• Maths slide:1000 – KS2
• Number Pieces
• Number Frames
• Number Rack
• Pieces Basic
• I See +/-
• I See X
• Geoboard
• Pattern Shapes
• DoodleMaths
• Number Line
• EZ Education Ltd

Resources to help your child:

Maths Passports:

To see what number facts your child will be learning at school, please select the Maths Passport for their year group. There is a different passport (continent) for each year group and the targets on each sheet are the expectations for that year group. The different targets are linked to modes of transport. Each passport has a range of questions linked to the different objectives. When pupils can quickly and confidently answer the example questions (from their passports) - and other examples, the target will be achieved.

A special thank you to Parkfield Primary School for helping us with this fantastic resource!

As with reading, try to make maths as much fun as possible - games, puzzles and jigsaws are a great way to start. It's also important to show how we use maths skills in our everyday lives and to involve your child in this.

Identifying problems and solving them can also help your child develop maths skills. If you see him or her puzzling over something, talk about the problem and try to work out the solution together.

Don't shy away from maths if you didn’t like it at school. Try to find new ways to enjoy the subject with your child.

Tips for helping your child to enjoy maths:

Every family can help their child with maths and boost their own confidence at the same time.

You don’t need to be a genius to give your child the right head start.

​We all use maths every day, often without realising it. We believe that every child can develop the numeracy skills they will need, both at school and throughout their lives. Helping your child feel confident about maths now gives them a head start.

Parental involvement has a large and positive impact on children's learning

Review of Best Practice in Parental Engagement" (Department for Education, 2010)

The effect of parental involvement at home was stronger than that of either socio-economic status or parents' level of education

The impact of parental involvement, parental support and family education on pupil achievement and adjustment (Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003)

Top tips for parents

• Be positive about maths. Try not to say things like "I can’t do maths" or "I hated maths at school" - your child may start to think like that themselves.
• Point out the maths in everyday life. Include your child in activities involving numbers and measuring, such as shopping, cooking and travelling.
• Praise your child for effort rather than for being "clever". This shows them that by working hard they can always improve.