Maths

At Arthur Bugler Primary School Mathematics is taught daily. We have high expectations for all our children and make lessons fun, interactive and relevant for all pupils.

Early Years

Objectives

In Early Years the planning objectives are taken from the Developmental Matters and Early Learning Goals documents. Throughout their time before school, and during their first year, they work towards specific goals which will underpin their future learning. Maths activities are taught directly, occur through child-initiated play or through specific individual teaching opportunities.

Numbers

By the end of Early Years, children should be able to count reliably with numbers from one to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.

Shape, space and measures

Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them.

Assessment, Marking and Feedback

In the Early Years, assessments are made based on a range of observations from adult-led and child initiated activities. Observations are recorded in our online learning journeys, which parents have immediate access to. Parents are able to add their own observations of children to record their progress and achievements. The majority of feedback is verbal and instant to ensure that pupils know what they have succeeded at and what they might do next. When written work is produced, the Key Stage 1 marking policy applies. Both directed and child initiated independent work will be used as evidence to inform assessments for children. Teacher assessments are ongoing but will be formally reported each half term. Children are assessed against the age bands from the Development Matters document, however, the formal assessments are made at the end of the year and are based on the Early Learning Goals. Children will be classified as emerging, expected or exceeding the goals.

Beyond the Early Years, our children will build on their learning using our own bespoke Mathematics curriculum using the White Rose Maths. This curriculum enables children to develop their arithmetic and reasoning skills in different mathematical topics. It ensures that all children are challenged at an appropriate level. The curriculum is influenced, inspired and informed by the work of leading maths researchers and practitioners across the world.

This is underpinned by highly visual and concrete approaches to Mathematics and is fully aligned to the expectations set out in the National Curriculum 2014. This approach has a strong base of evidence to show it really develops knowledge and understanding for all pupils including our most able.

Children must be exposed to different representations of mathematical concepts in order to embed understanding, as well as manipulating known number facts through missing number scenarios. There is a strong emphasis on maths talk and learning key mental basic skills, such as number bonds, multiplication facts and the inverses. The expectations of the National Curriculum have changed and whilst it is important to challenge all pupils, we must also ensure that children are making progress towards mastery level by having opportunities to reason about number and recognize patterns and relationships; which will only be the case if pupils are taught how to develop these skills.

Support

Pupils

We are able to provide additional support for pupils who are struggling with an area or aspect of mathematical development. Our tracking of all our pupils’ progress enables us to identify any barriers, issues or gaps in learning early on. We will deliver small group sessions taught by our most experienced teachers in addition to the daily maths lesson.

Parents and Carers

Sometimes, the methods of calculating we teach are different from those parents and carers used when they were at school. Please refer to our Maths Calculation Policy for information on the methods used in school. To help support your understanding, we also run workshops about calculating methods for parents. Please see our School Calendar for details and dates.