Mathematics
Subject Leader Statement
"Developing maths skills helps children develop self-confidence, perseverance and critical thinking skills. It is a subject that can provide both practical and emotional benefits."
Maths at Stewart Fleming ensures that all children are consistently making links between the learning that takes place in the classroom with real life examples. This means that children understand the importance of each lesson and how they will use these skills throughout their life. In order to deepen their learning further, children apply their knowledge to a range of challenges and investigations, including using their mathematical vocabulary to answer reasoning questions.
White Rose ensures that the National Curriculum objectives are not only met, but that there are further opportunities for all children to deepen and apply their knowledge. Learning experiences take place inside and outside of the classroom which allows for children to develop and explore the key skills of concrete, pictorial and abstract learning. Children are enthusiastic about their maths learning and are always keen for challenges which maximises their understanding and empowers them as independent thinkers.
The skills that the children master in maths are fully transferable to other key areas in the curriculum. Children can confidently apply these skills to a range of different areas including Science, Geography, History and PE. Collecting and interpreting data and analysing results through Science experiments allows children to apply their knowledge to real life examples. Reading maps, plotting coordinates and investigating population data provides the children with a deeper understanding of the world around us. Through learning how to apply key mathematical skills and using these effectively in a range of scenarios means that these children will be best prepared for their next step in education and beyond.
Maths Curriculum
"A high-quality mathematics education provides a foundation for understanding the world, theability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject." (National Curriculum 2014)
The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:
- become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately
- reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
- can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions
Below is a document showing the progression of the statutory mathematics objectives from the National Curriculum. It outlines the relevant objectives for each year group and shows the progression of skills and knowledge taught as children progress through their time at primary school.
Maths Across the Curriculum
Although the mathematics curriculum is organised as a discrete subject, there are many potential cross-curricular activities. Making links between areas of learning deepens children’s understanding by providing opportunities to reinforce and enhance learning. Learning is enhanced by:
- Giving further opportunities to practise taught skills in a purposeful way in other areas of the curriculum.
- Providing real experiences, context and meaning for the development of core mathematical skills.
- Assisting memory through providing opportunities for children to use skills in a different context.
- Providing opportunities for the application of knowledge in new contexts, to involve children in higher order thinking skills, such as reasoning and problem solving.
- Providing opportunities for learners to recognise and develop key aspects of learning, e.g. looking for patterns and relationships, problem solving and reasoning.
- Using ICT (ipads, laptops, online maths programmes, software and games) to collect and manipulate data and encourage collaborative learning between pupils.
Calculation Policy
Under the maths curriculum (2014) the expectation is “By the end of year 6, pupils should be fluent in written methods for all 4 operations, including long multiplication and division, and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages.” Our calculation Policy, which has been written in line with the programmes of study taken from the revised National Curriculum for Mathematics (2014) provides guidance on appropriate calculation methods and progression. The content is set out in yearly blocks under the following headings: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Statements taken directly from the programmes of study are listed in bold at the beginning of each section.
Times Tables
Learning times tables is an essential part of your child's mathematical education. Children who have mastered their tables gain a solid foundation in mathematics that will help them throughout their progression within the subject. Many children are able to recite in order, their timetables, but to truly know the answer to any times table question independently is a skill that takes a lot of hard work. The national expectation for timestables by year group are as follows:
Year 1 - Count in multiples of twos, fives and tens (to the 10th multiple)
Year 2 - recall and use multiplication facts for the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables and show that multiplication of two numbers can be done in any order (commutative)
Year 3 - recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 3, 4 and 8 multiplication tables
Year 4 - recall multiplication facts for multiplication tables up to 12 × 12
Year 5 & 6 – Consolidating and applying (Mastery)
By the time children reach the end of KS2, the expectation is that their times tables should be secure so that they are able to answer any times table question mentally within a five second period.
To help children practise their times tables they can access Times Table Rock Stars https://ttrockstars.com/
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