Maths Vision

“Maths is the study of patterns abstracted from the world around us – so anything we learn in maths has literally thousands of applications in arts, sciences, finance, health and leisure.”

Professor Ruth Lawrence, University of Michigan

“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist.

Intent:

At Swaffham CofE Primary Academy (SPA) our vision is to inspire children, their families and our staff to SHINE, LEARN, BELIEVE and BELONG so our children achieve their very best, leaving us as confident, happy, resilient learners. We learn maths to become functioning adults who are able to think mathematically, enabling them to reason, solve problems and assess risk in a range of contexts and believe in their own ability. We want our children to know more, remember more and apply their knowledge in a range of ways. Maths is a creative subject which sits at the core of our curriculum. It provides learners with powerful ways to describe, analyse and change the world and shine in many ways. Children can experience a sense of awe and wonder as they solve a problem for the first time, discover a more elegant solution and make links between different areas of mathematics. We want our children to re-visit learning in a spiral approach to make links not only through their year group curriculum but through the maths curriculum as a whole.  

Maths is an international language and a subject that transcends cultural boundaries and its importance is universally recognised.  Maths makes a significant contribution to modern society, enabling us all to belong in harmony together: the basic skills of maths are vital for the life opportunities of our children; and maths develops the mind and those highly valued cognitive skills.

Maths allows people to understand and change the world - we want our children to be world-changers. Our children “Don’t often escape Swaffham” so with an excellent mathematics curriculum, many more doors will open and the aspirations to achieve greater things will be increased. To promote this our children will have:

•    A deep understanding of maths and number.

•    A positive and resilient attitude towards mathematics alongside a fascination with mathematics.

•    Competence and confidence in mathematical knowledge, concepts and skills.

•    An ability to solve problems, reason, think logically and work systematically and accurately.

•    A range of learning strategies, working both collaboratively and independently.

•    Fluency in mathematics where children can express ideas confidently and talk about the subject using mathematical language.

•    An understanding of the importance of mathematics in everyday life.

•    Independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning.

•    An understanding that a mistake is an opportunity to learn.

•    An understanding that mathematical ability is not innate, and is increased through effort. 

•    An opportunity to apply maths across the wider curriculum so that they are able to apply their mathematical skills to the wider world.

Implementation:

Our maths curriculum ensures that all pupils:

•    Are taught in a way which enables the teacher to become the expert and impart their knowledge as well as challenge the children to induce AfL opportunities.

•    Have access to supporting manipulatives such as: bead strings, cubes, bar models to enable them to become more independent learners.

•    Are taught the gaps (both in lessons and through maths meetings) they have by teachers who have rigorously analysed assessment data using the QLA documents. 

•    Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics through placing number at the heart of our curriculum with daily practice to ensure fluency of number facts. These are presented in a range of ways to enable higher level thinking.

•    Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry through ensuring discussion plays a vital role in all lessons.  Children are actively encouraged to discuss with peers and teachers - how? why? using mathematical language. “Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics.”

Eric Temple Bell, Scottish mathematician.

•    Can solve problems by ensuring problem solving is embedded in every lesson through a range of questions where children can apply their knowledge to different situations.

•    Re-visit prior learning within the 5Q’s at the beginning of each maths lesson.

•    Are taught multiplication tables in a systematic way with the teacher demonstrating patterns with numbers so that they are not just fact fluent but have a conceptual approach to this. We also use Times Table Rockstars as a way to promote the learning of multiplication facts both at school and at home.

•    Make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop a mastery approach to learning.

We follow the National Curriculum and use adapted White Rose Schemes of Work as a guide to support teachers with their planning and assessment. We are also continuing our journey to become a maths mastery school, with the Maths Hub Programme, coordinated by the NCETM. Therefore, we also use their supporting materials within our lessons too. Our emphasis is on number skills first, carefully ordered, throughout our primary curriculum because we believe that to learn mathematics effectively, some things have to be learned before others, e.g. place value needs to be understood before working with addition and subtraction, addition needs to be learnt before looking at multiplication (as a model of repeated addition). We implement a thorough Calculations Policy to ensure a consistent approach to teaching the four operations over time, promoting progression.