Our Vision for Mathematics at Amberley Primary School

At Amberley Primary we have a clear vision and belief that ALL children can achieve well in Mathematics. We are proud of our maths curriculum and our approach to teaching it and through its delivery we aim to spark a passion for learning and give all children the opportunity to succeed.

As in all areas of our curriculum we seek to include and promote our three core values within the subject.

Nurturing

We promote positive mathematical mindsets ensuring that all children have the opportunity to work with peers and adults with care, support and encouragement to ensure we eradicate any form of maths anxiety and encourage a love of learning.

Innovation

As a staff team we are reflective, keep up to date with current educational research and adapt our practice as we constantly strive to improve to ensure we are delivering a high quality maths curriculum for all.

Aspiration

We believe all children can achieve well in Maths and therefore set high expectations of all children. We plan and deliver lessons to ensure there is support and challenge for all groups of learners. We will not rush ahead in our delivery of the curriculum but allow children to explore mathematical concepts in real depth, developing secure understanding and the ability to reason and problem solve, building real life skills that will support them in the world of work and beyond.

Our curriculum, whilst personalised, follows the statutory requirements of the national curriculum. Through our curriculum design we aim to support all of our children to become resilient, independent mathematicians who are fluent, curious and creative and who thrive on reasoning and solving problems.

Curriculum Intent

At Amberley we believe that all pupils can achieve in mathematics. We believe that at each stage of learning, children should be able to demonstrate deep, conceptual understanding of a topic and build on this over time. We want children to be able to not only recall and use the maths taught but to also be able to transfer and apply it in different contexts, being able to reason and problem solve. This deep learning is what we are aiming for by teaching maths using the mastery approach.

As detailed in our overall curriculum intent, the teaching of mathematics at Amberley embraces all three of our core values: nurturing, innovation and aspiration. By focussing on these three key priorities at the heart our curriculum we believe our children will be ready to successfully meet the challenges of the next stages of their education.

Our Curriculum Plans have been designed using the NCETM PD materials and the DFE Teaching Mathematics in Primary Schools documents. Sequencing is mainly based on the recommendations of the NCETM PD materials.

These are working documents and timing can be adapted to meet the needs of the children.

Maths in EYFS

It is our aim to develop a love of Mathematics from the very beginning of the children’s learning journey at Amberley. This begins in EYFS.  Teaching and learning of mathematics in our Nursery and Reception classes takes place both indoors and outdoors through a wide range of practical and "hands on" activities.

The staff use their knowledge and expertise to plan for a high quality learning environment which provides children with lots of opportunities to explore different aspects of number and shape, space and measures and learn new concepts.

Take a look at the document attached to see what early Maths is like at Amberley.

Curriculum Implementation

Our maths curriculum is split into year group specific units that are taught in a sequence whereby previous learning can be used to support new learning. The sequence in which the units are taught also supports the teaching of, and the children’s ability to create links between different concepts and therefore deepen their understanding. Each unit is then designed in small, carefully sequenced steps that pupils should aim to master before moving on to the next stage. When designing these small steps, the concepts of mastery underpin the lesson planning to ensure children have a deep conceptual understanding of what is being taught. The objective is explored using a range of representations and structures; fluency is developed as well as the flexibility to move between different contexts; variation is used to develop deep and holistic understanding and children are encouraged to think mathematically throughout.

A typical maths lesson at Amberley may begin by activating prior knowledge that children may need to access from their long term memory to help them to learn the new concept of the day. The lesson will then progress through a number of small steps to develop understanding of what is being taught. These small steps may introduce the concept using a range of representations, may use conceptual and procedural variation to explore the concept further and will encourage the children to respond in complete sentences using the correct mathematical vocabulary. Opportunities for practice are thought about carefully. Teachers ensure students have adequate time to practice the maths and design tasks based around what they want children to think about in the lesson. Adaptive teaching approaches are used to ensure all children are working towards the same outcomes and children are challenged to think mathematically throughout.

Mastering Number sessions are delivered 4 times per week in Reception and KS1. This project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. This number sense work continues in KS2 in the form of maths meetings. These daily sessions focus on developing automaticity of times table facts, improving flexibility of mental calculation strategies and provides further opportunities for mathematical thinking.

Problem Solving at Amberley

Over the last few years we have developed how we teach problem solving in school. We believe children will not become better problems solvers simply by accessing more problems but need to be taught specific problem solving strategies, how to select an appropriate strategy and then apply these to a range of problem types.

Children across school know the positive mindset needed to become successful problem solvers and our problem solving lessons start by discussing what makes a good problem solver. They know they will be detectives looking for clues, they may need to be resilient when faced with a challenge, they may need to try different strategies and change pathways whilst solving a problem and they know that this lesson will not involve ‘fast’ maths.

We are also currently working with Northumbria University on their ‘Think, Talk, Learn’ project that looks sepcifically at developing reasoning and problem solving skills for Y2 pupils. This is an exciting project that closely mirrors our school philosphy for developing problem solving skills.

We ensure children have access to a range of problem types such as:

• Finding all possibilities
• Logic
• Visual
• Rules and patterns
• Word problems

Then we teach them how to solve these types of problems by applying a range of strategies such as:

• Working Systematically
• Trial and Improvement
• Spotting Patterns
• Visualising
• Draw the Problem
• Working Backwards

Through research, our maths lead has developed our approach to teaching problem solving following the metacognitive cycle of ‘plan, monitor and review’.

Plan: Before trying to solve a problem, children start by noting what they know, what they don’t know and what the problem is asking them to do. From this they select a strategy to get started with.

Monitor: As they are solving the problem, the children pause to monitor their progress, perhaps changing their strategy or sharing their success.

Review: Once they believe they have solved the problem the children review their success. Does their answer make sense in the context of the problem? Did their selected strategy work? If they were to approach this problem again would they do anything differently?

To help the children develop these metacognitive skills we have found modeling through ‘Think Alouds’ very useful. Below is a link to our Maths Lead’s Talking Heads video and blog on the EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) website talking about how this approach has helped in school.

Curriculum Impact

Teaching staff and support staff use a wide range of formative assessment tools during the lesson to judge the impact that the teaching is having on the children’s learning.

A lesson is delivered at the beginning of a unit to gauge children’s prior understanding of a topic using the ready to progress criteria for previous year groups. This lesson can then used to show children what new learning will take place in this unit providing opportunities for children to make connections between their prior understanding and what is coming next. Post assessments are then completed at the end of a unit to inform the teacher what has been learned with a focus on the ready to progress criteria. Where assessments have shown that understanding may not be as deep, these ideas are covered further in either small group intervention sessions or through further teaching.

As well as this, teaching and support staff also judge the success of each individual lesson. Where it is believed that children have not developed a deep understanding of a concept, they will attend a maths master class that afternoon. This is a chance for the children to work in a small group to explore the concept further and address any misconceptions that may have arisen during the lesson. Where no children are identified for a master class, pre-teach sessions can be delivered to small groups of children where a concept is introduced to them in preparation for the next session. This approach is designed to allow the children to ‘keep up’ with their learning rather than having to ‘catch up’.

To further measure the impact of maths teaching and learning we also deliver summative assessments at the end of each term. This is a helpful tool to measure how deep the children have learned a concept when it is assessed out of context and at a later date to the initial teacher input. Question level analysis is then completed of these tests to measure this impact and help inform planning for the next term.

What do the children at Amberley say about Maths?

“I love Maths. Puzzles are the best!”

“I love learning about numbers especially times tables.”

“I love learning new things and trying different strategies. It’s fun and you can get different answers in problem solving tasks.”

“I want to be a maths teacher when I am older!”

I want to be a scientist and I know how important numbers are for this job.”

Our School Partnership

Amberley staff have been working with the Great North Maths Hub, coordinated by the NCETM, since 2017.

The Great North Maths Hub is part of a programme funded by the Department for Education (DfE), to ensure excellent teaching of Mathematics.

Our staff have been have been provided with some excellent opportunities due to this partnership and our Maths Lead is a Primary Mastery Specialist working with schools across the North East as a work group lead.

This project has allowed us to develop our own teaching, support other schools and gain expert guidance to ensure the best for our pupils.

Below are some videos to show how calculation progresses across school.