Maths Zone

Our children are highly motivated and engaged in Maths lessons and enjoy regular challenges. As a result they enjoy experiencing regular success and love celebrating their progress.

As a school, we follow the White Rose Maths Mastery scheme for KS1 & KS2 and the Mastering Numberprogram for children within EYFS.  We also supplement children’s learning by providing KS1 children with 15 minute Mastering Number sessions to help develop a good sense of number, LKS2 children with 15 minute Number Sense Times Table Fluency sessions to build fluency and understanding in multiplicative relationships and UKS2 children with 20 minute Big Math sessions to ensure all have the needed Core Numeracy skills to be confident with number. 

Daily supplemented sessions (mentioned above) ensure that children are taught in small steps so that they become secure in ‘the basics’ and can be flexible and efficient with the use of these facts from an early age. Big Maths tests take place every Friday morning. 

During all Maths lessons, children are encouraged to become ‘independent learners’ and to take an active interest in their studies and in their progress. Mathematics lessons follow a flexible, mastery scheme provided through the ‘White Rose Maths and Mastering Number’ schemes. These are used to build a new culture within school of deep understanding, confidence and competence in Maths, where children can show real progress through strong and secure learning. To achieve this, children: 

• Learn to subitise (visually see a number of objects instantly without needing to count them out one at a time) from an early age, in order to see, solve and manipulate numbers in their head.
• Must develop quick and efficient recall of facts and procedures and acquire the flexibility to move between different contexts and representations of mathematics;
• Study each concept in depth so there is sufficient time to comprehend one concept before the next one is introduced;
• Sequence topics so that, as much as possible the mental distance between concepts gradually unfolds, providing access for all children and leading to a generalisation of an idea, thus enabling the children to apply the concept to a range of contexts;
• Guide their attention to what is keeping the same and what changes, helping them to connect the mathematics, again drawing their attention to mathematical relationships and structure;
• Investigate different representations of mathematical concepts, enabling them to expose mathematical structure and allow their attention to be drawn to the critical aspects to enable them to develop a more holistic understanding.

Children are regularly asked to explain their reasoning and justify their opinions with  challenges such as "Prove it!" "Explain how you know!" and "Is there a better way of doing that?"