Mathematics

We want all children to enjoy maths

Vision for Maths

Our aim, at Dove Bank Primary School, is for all children to enjoy maths and to develop a secure and deep understanding of fundamental mathematical concepts and procedures.

It is our intent that all children are taught these key skills through: high quality teaching, regular opportunities to practise and related challenges.

We want children to think of themselves as mathematicians and experience the fascination and excitement of discovery as they master new mathematical concepts, and develop vital life skills in this subject.

What’s New?

As our children have missed several months of schooling through lockdown, when we returned to school we focused on developing skills in key areas.

This Autumn we are following the normal progression in the Power Maths curriculum, however before starting the autumn term content, we will pre-assess and try to fill gaps, do extra fluency work alongside maths lessons and plan pre and post-teaching sessions for small groups.

Subject Leader Biography

Hello everyone, my name is Mrs Vale and I have the pleasure of leading maths at Dove Bank Primary.

I feel that children must develop secure mental and written calculation skills to be successful with maths. To achieve this, we use a mastery approach to teaching maths.

This teaching model was created by leading educational experts from the UK and China and is an exciting growth mindset and problem-solving approach which helps spark curiosity and excitement for maths and equips children with deeper understanding.

Please feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss anything related to the teaching of maths.

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Subject priorities

To ensure pupils make rapid progress with their arithmetic skills so that they develop the confidence and skills to attempt rich problem-solving tasks.

To ensure all pupils are challenged appropriately with high quality teaching that meets their individual needs.

To enhance our use of mathematics across the curriculum by developing cross curricular links with subjects such as science, geography and computing.

    Useful links

    Calculation Policy

    Maths Games

    • Maths Zone - a collection of games and activities across the full range of curriculum content, mostly appropriate to our KS2 pupils.
    • Topmarks - lots of fun games to play with children of all ages!
    • Mathsframe
    • Primary Games Arena - another collection of fun maths games.

     Internet-based Activities relating to Number and Place Value

    Internet-based Games relating to Times Tables Practice

    Curriculum Statement

    Intent

    Mathematics is an important creative discipline that helps us to understand and change the world.

    We want all pupils at Dove Bank Primary School to experience the beauty, power and enjoyment of mathematics and develop a sense of curiosity about the subject with a clear understanding.

    At Dove Bank, we foster positive can-do attitudes and we promote the fact that ‘we can all do maths!’
    We believe all children can achieve in mathematics, and teach for secure and deep understanding of mathematical concepts through manageable steps.

    We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning and provide challenge through rich and sophisticated problems. At our school, most children will be taught the content from their year group only.

    They will spend time becoming true masters of content, applying and being creative with new knowledge in multiple ways once they have secured the fundamental fluency or number and calculation.

    We intend for all children to:

    • become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately;

    • be able to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios;

    • reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language;

    • have an appreciation of number and number operations, which enables mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately to be successful in mathematics.

    Implementation

    At Dove Bank, our whole curriculum is shaped by our school vision which aims to enable all children to flourish and to become the very best version of themselves. We are part of the DfE funded Maths Hubs programme and are in our second year of this programme. This provides us with access to high quality CPD.

    To ensure consistent coverage, teachers in each year group follow the Power Maths scheme of learning. Within this scheme, new concepts are shared within the context of an initial problem, which children are able to discuss in partners. This initial problem-solving activity prompts discussion and reasoning, as well as promoting an awareness of maths in relatable real-life contexts that link to other areas of learning.

    Children are encouraged to solve problems each day through the use of concrete resources, pictorial representations and abstract thinking (the C-P-A approach). This helps children tackle concepts in a tangible and more comfortable way.

    Teachers use careful questions to draw out children’s discussions and their reasoning. The class teacher then leads children through strategies for solving the problem, including those already discussed.

    Children then progress to their Practice Books, where each question varies one small element to move children on in their thinking. Children complete intelligent practice independently, ending in a ‘Reflect’ section where children reveal the depth of their understanding before moving on to more complex related problems.

    Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Each lesson phase provides the means to achieve greater depth, with children who are quick to grasp new content, being offered rich and sophisticated problems, as well as exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate.

    Impact

    Students can sometimes underperform in mathematics because they think they cannot do it or are not naturally good at it.

    The Power Maths programme addresses these preconceptions by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success in mathematics by developing a growth mindset.

    Therefore, as our journey towards embedding the mastery approach continues, the following will apply:

    • We will have teachers and support staff who fully understand and support the pedagogy of mastery mathematics.
    • We will have children who are increasingly engaged in maths lessons and talk passionately about the subject, making links with other subjects and with the wider world.
    • We will observe children tackling mathematical challenges with resilience, confidently using concrete resources and visual representations.
    • We will have children who are more articulate when discussing mathematical concepts.
    • We will see progress becoming more accelerated due to the way lessons are structured and the impact of immediate, tailored interventions.
    • We will have a greater proportion of our reception children achieving age-related expectations within the early learning goals, and a greater percentage of our children achieving the higher standard scores at the end of each key stage.

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