Maths at Valentine Primary School

Intent:

At Valentine Primary School we want to enthuse children about Mathematics so that they may appreciate the creativity of the subject, as well as see its usefulness in everyday life and apply it in context.  We want children to ASPIRE to be the best mathematicians they can be.

Our mathematicians will develop fluency from their starting points (based on teacher assessment) through deliberate practice, so that they are CONFIDENT and fluent with place value and the four operations.  They will be able to apply their number skills to a wide range of problems and see the links within and between different areas of maths.  This will enable our learners to persevere and grapple with more complex mathematical challenges; explain their reasoning; reflect on the efficiency of their methods; and listen to and appreciate alternative approaches.  EMPATHY. 

Our Maths Curriculum at Valentine enables children to develop:

• Mathematical Fluency – Embedding the Four Operations (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division) and Place Value
• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
• Mathematical Reasoning – explain thought processes and learn from the methods of others
• Interpret and use a variety of representations
• Use of mathematical vocabulary accurately to express thinking
• Use appropriate tools
• Appreciation of the purpose, usefulness and creativity of maths and willingness to use it

Implementation:

Maths Teaching at Valentine

Within our maths lessons we will explicitly teach the four operations methods specific to each year group (set out in VPS Calculation Strategies doc).  We will conduct pre-assessments of each maths unit before it is taught in order to establish children’s starting points.  Teachers will use ‘Assessment for Learning’ to target children’s specific areas of need and will use deliberate practice to help embed the four operations and place value.  When children are confident with the four operations and place value, they will be given opportunities to apply these in a range of reasoning and problem solving scenarios. 

Children will be taught the correct mathematical vocabulary specific to the concepts that they are being taught and they will be expected to use this accurately in context.

Where appropriate, teachers will provide children with concrete resources in order to support their understanding of mathematical concepts.  Teachers will provide a range of pictorial representations so that children see maths used in wide variety of contexts.  As they move towards mastery, children will be exposed to abstract representations of mathematical concepts.

They will be challenged to draw on their number skills and show mastery of these when solving problems and conducting investigations.  Teachers will model strategies for how to approach and tackle problems and investigations before children are expected to work on these independently.

When a unit of work is completed, children will complete a post-assessment in order to check their progress and highlight areas which may need to be revised in the future.