Bradfield Dungworth Primary School

Maths

Intent

The intention of the maths curriculum at Bradfield Dungworth is that children are taught to become competent mathematicians; we strive to embed the skills and processes necessary to enable children to use and apply their Maths learning in a variety of contexts. We aim to develop children’s enjoyment of maths and provide opportunities for children to build a conceptual understanding of Maths before applying their knowledge to everyday problems and challenges. Our approach to the teaching of mathematics develops children's ability to work both independently and collaboratively as part of a team. Through mathematical talk, children will develop the ability to articulate and discuss their thinking. By the end of Key Stage Two, children will leave our prepared for the next step in their mathematical education.

Implementation

At Bradfield Dungworth, we recognise that in order for pupils to progress to deeper and more complex problems, children need to be confident and fluent across each yearly objective. We provide age-appropriate fluency tasks for our pupils: in turn, practising key skills and allowing children be become confident when working on key strategies, calculations or methods. To ensure our pupils acquire a deeper understanding in their mathematical learning journey, we supplement our fluency resources by using the White Rose Maths Hub schemes of learning to support the teaching of mathematics.

Within the Maths Hub schemes of learning, each National Curriculum objective is broken down into fluency, reasoning and problem solving; our teachers use the learning challenges to teach for mastery - an approach to extend and deepen the understanding of pupils within each year group. Our teaching staff use this document in conjunction with a range of high quality resources such as NRich and NCETM to support, stretch and challenge all learners within the classroom.

The content and principles underpinning the 2014 Mathematics curriculum and the Maths curriculum at Bradfield Dungworth reflect those found in high-performing education systems internationally, particularly those of east and south-east Asian countries such as Singapore, Japan, South Korea and China. These principles and features characterise this approach and convey how our curriculum is implemented:

Teachers reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Mathematics.
The large majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace.
Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support and intervention.
Teaching is underpinned by methodical curriculum design and supported by carefully crafted lessons and resources to foster deep conceptual and procedural knowledge.
Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts.
Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess children regularly to identify those requiring intervention, so that all children keep up.

Concrete, pictorial, abstract

Objects, pictures, words, numbers and symbols are everywhere. The mastery approach incorporates all of these to help children explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enrich their learning experience and deepen understanding. Together, these elements help cement knowledge so pupils truly understand what they’ve learnt.

All pupils, when introduced to a key new concept, should have the opportunity to build competency in this topic by taking this approach. Pupils are encouraged to physically represent mathematical concepts. Objects and pictures are used to demonstrate and visualise abstract ideas, alongside numbers and symbols.

Concrete – children have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing.

Pictorial – children then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can then be used to reason and solve problems.

Abstract – With the foundations firmly laid, children can move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.