At Ryhope Junior School, we believe that mathematics is an essential life skill. We are committed to ensuring that all children are able to recognise the importance of maths in the wider world and that they are able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives, in a range of different contexts.

Intent

What are we trying to achieve through our curriculum…

At Ryhope Junior School, our aim is to design a curriculum which is accessible to all and will maximise the development of every child’s ability and academic achievement. We want all children to enjoy maths and to experience success in the subject; with the ability to reason mathematically. We are committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject, as well as an appreciation of the power of maths, and its links to other curriculum areas. 

We aim to foster a love for maths and promote a growth mindset amongst pupils, which encourages them to embrace challenges and develop an ability to solve problems, to reason, to think logically and to work systematically and with accuracy. By doing so, we aim to encourage our children to develop a resilient and positive attitude towards this subject.

We follow the National Curriculum for maths and lessons are planned and delivered using resources from the NCETM Prioritisation Curriculum to enable us to do this. We deliver lessons that are creative and engaging using the CPA (Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract) approach.  This enables all children to access the curriculum and understand the fundamentals. Through daily arithmetic lessons, children are given regular opportunities to develop their fluency and recall of facts. This is taught in addition to the daily maths lesson where children are encouraged to make connections across mathematical procedures and concepts to ensure fluency, reasoning and competence in solving problems. 

Our aim is to ensure that pupils are fluent in basic skills as well as being able to make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. We intend for our pupils to be able to apply their mathematical knowledge to science, for example, and to other subjects. We want them to know that maths is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment.  

Our pupils should:

• have a well-developed sense of the size of a number and where it fits into the number system
• know ‘by heart’ number facts such as number bonds, multiplication tables, doubles and halves
• use known facts to calculate numbers mentally
• calculate accurately and efficiently, both mentally and in writing and paper, drawing on a range of calculation strategies
• make sense of number problems, including non-routine/’real’ problems and identify the operations needed to solve them
• explain their methods and reasoning, using correct mathematical terms
• judge whether their answers are reasonable and have strategies for checking them where necessary
• suggest suitable units for measuring and make sensible estimates of measurements
• explain and make predictions from the numbers in graphs, diagrams, charts and tables
• develop spatial awareness and an understanding of the properties of 2d and 3d shapes.

Implementation

How our curriculum is delivered…

At Ryhope Junior School, children are given a number of opportunities across the school day to develop their mathematical skills, such as morning memory jogger sessions, maths lessons and arithmetic lessons. All of these occur on a daily basis. We are committed to providing a challenging, comprehensive and relevant maths curriculum that is accessible to all children.

Maths lessons are planned and delivered using resources from the NCETM Prioritisation Curriculum. This a well-structured and sequenced curriculum which ensures a progressive development of mathematical skills and knowledge. Within lessons, children acquire fluency skills through the introduction of concepts in a practical or concrete way, progressing to a pictorial approach and then abstract representations (CPA). Teachers have excellent subject knowledge and use a range of pedagogical approaches to make learning engaging and accessible for all pupils. Concepts are taught to the class as a whole, modelling and discussing concepts together, before giving children the opportunity to apply and practice these skills independently or with a learning partner.

For those pupils who struggle or are working below age-related expectations within parts of the curriculum, adult support, use of additional resources and partner/ group work are used to further provide support. Additionally, intervention sessions are provided to ensure that children have an understanding of the concept in order to access this is the following lesson. For SEND pupils who are working two years below age related expectations, a bespoke curriculum is provided.

Maths resources are available and clearly labelled on maths trolleys blow the maths working wall in each classroom. This gives children access to these resources at any point during a lesson, to support and aid their maths understanding. The maths working wall is situated in the same position in every classroom with uniform representations being used throughout the school. This is used to model and display current concepts and worked models, aiding children when working independently.

Impact

The difference our curriculum is making…

The impact of our maths curriculum is evidenced through learning outcomes in books, children’s ability to explain and reason their thinking, discussions with children and the use of assessment tests. Lesson observations and discussions with pupils show that concepts are embedded and that they are confident and able to talk about what they have learnt using specific mathematical vocabulary.

Our policy of oral feedback and self-marking during lessons supports children in recognising their own areas of understanding as well as their areas for development. Children are encouraged to share their misconceptions so that they can be discussed together as a class, allowing them to learn from the explanations of their peers. Sentence stems are displayed on the whiteboard, along with key vocabulary, to encourage children to use mathematical language when explaining, justifying and evidencing their thinking.

By the end of KS2 pupils should be able to:

• Demonstrate quick recall of facts and procedures,
• Use flexibility and fluidity to move between different contexts and representations,
• Independently apply their skills to find the answers,
• Recognise relationships and make relevant connections in mathematics.

Teachers are encouraged to use their professional judgement, so that children are given sufficient time to learn and embed each area of maths before progressing to a different domain.  Formative assessment during lessons gives teachers the flexibility to intervene during a lesson so they can re-teach concepts as required. A range of activities are used throughout lessons, which show evidence of mathematical fluency, reasoning and problem solving.

Pupil Voice