Curridge Primary School

Maths - Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics

Intent

Mathematics introduces children to concepts, skills and thinking strategies that are essential in everyday life and support learning across the curriculum. It helps children make sense of the numbers, patterns and shapes they see in the world around them, offers ways of handling data in an increasingly digital world and makes a crucial contribution to their development as successful learners.

Children delight in using mathematics to solve a problem, especially when it leads them to an unexpected discovery or new connections. As their confidence grows, they look for patterns, use logical reasoning, suggest solutions and try out different approaches to problems. Mathematics offers children a powerful way of communicating. They learn to explore and explain their ideas using symbols, diagrams and spoken and written language. They start to discover how mathematics has developed over time and contributes to our economy, society and culture. Studying mathematics stimulates curiosity, fosters creativity and equips children with the skills they need in life beyond school.

Across the school, we:

• Understand the importance of maths in everyday life and society
• Understand the importance of maths in other curriculum areas
• Understand the importance of maths in human knowledge and culture, past and present
• Ensure a coherent curriculum that is compatible with sequences of important mathematical ideas.
• Strengthen children’s problem solving and reasoning processes as well as representing, communicating, and connecting mathematical ideas.
• Use a range of experiences and teaching strategies to introduce mathematical concepts, methods, and language.
• Support children’s learning by thoughtful and continuous assessment.
• Build on children’s background experience and knowledge.
• Integrate mathematics with other activities

Implementation

Children’s excitement about mathematics comes from their own thinking abilities and social interaction that promotes children to act as young mathematicians by requiring them to prove their answer and all the steps they took to attain the answer. Additionally, it is important to allow children to be wrong before being right so they see “wrong” answers as a natural part of mathematical processes.

Across the school, we:

• Allow children to work for an extended time on a single problem
• Give children opportunities to collaborate with their peers
• Give children the skills to argue, consult, defend, ask, explain, and pose questions to others
• Encourage children to explain and prove their solution
• Give children time to think and discuss their ideas and solutions
• Pose problems that spark children’s thinking, rather than promote rote memorisation
• Promote satisfaction from the problem-solving process so children can take pride in their solutions
• Support children to make connections to prior knowledge and real-life experiences
• Encourage children to use unsuccessful attempts as stepping-stones to solutions, emphasising mathematical thinking rather than just getting the correct answer
• Apply mathematics to other curriculum areas
• Provide opportunities to foster problem-solving strategies, logical and systematic reasoning, creative thinking, recognising patterns and generalizations and communication of mathematical ideas
• Give children opportunities to use and apply their mathematical thinking in all learning and teaching
• Use real-life problems and meaningful contexts in which to introduce new mathematical concept or idea
• Give children opportunities to use and apply mathematics in a range of tasks
• Teach children to represent and model situations using mathematics
• Use a range of tools and resources in order to predict, plan and try out options
• Encourage children to make reasonable estimations
• Teach children to interpret and interrogate mathematical data in graphs, spreadsheets and diagrams, in order to draw inferences, recognise patterns and trends, and assess likelihood and risk
• Encourage the use of mathematics to justify and support decisions and ideas
• Expect children to communicate accurately using mathematical language and conventions, symbols and diagrams

Impact

• Children enjoy mathematics and derive a sense of pleasure that comes from solving a problem or a mathematical puzzle
• Children are curious and formulate their own questions and predictions
• Children investigate mathematical situations for increasingly complex problems and puzzles
• Children play games that draw on mathematical skills and concepts
• Children experiment with pattern in numbers and shapes and discover relationships for themselves
• Children experience moments in mathematics where they are surprised, delighted or intrigued

Early Years:

Early mathematical understanding is achieved during both child-initiated play and adult teaching through meaningful contexts, so that all children have daily moments where they explicitly engage with mathematical concepts and language.

• Young children, throughout the EYFS and beyond, learn through investigating, exploring, talking, problem-solving and practical activity.
• Adults create a continuous learning environment that supports children’s growing mathematical understanding
• Adults provide experiences which focus specifically on aspects of maths learning
• Children develop their own mathematical markings making to support their mathematical thinking
• Children calculate in practical and meaningful situations
• Adults model mathematical vocabulary on a daily basis and provide practical experiences that promote mathematical talk
• Children have access to real-life resources that they can use to explore their growing mathematical understanding
• Children record their mathematical ideas using words, numbers or resources
• Begin to use mathematical recording such as, pictures, symbols, dots, numerals or a combination of these
• Adults engage children individually and in groups
• Adults support children to be resilient and take risks, spot patterns and make connections