The purpose for teaching Mathematics
At Eastfield Primary School, the maths curriculum aims to provide children with the confidence and thinking strategies to tackle practical and problem-solving situations in everyday life. It has been constructed to reflect the Teaching for Mastery approach, which we believe will allow children to achieve high standards. Well thought out lessons, which work through a small steps progression, aim to develop fluency, reasoning and problem-solving skills whilst supporting children to move learning into their long-term memory.
To support this, we understand and value the need for continued professional development within our teaching team and so we have started to build links with other schools through the NCETM and the local Maths Hubs. This ensures staff are well-supported and they can support all children effectively.
The teaching and learning of Mathematics
In EYFS, a number sense approach is taken for children to master number. For each number, we follow the number trajectories for counting and cardinality, comparison and composition. Across pre-school and Reception, one number will be focused on by looking at different representations, positioning on a number line and number bonds. Children will use this knowledge of number to solve problems and to apply these skills to their own investigations in the continuous provision. NCETM trajectories are also used for shape and space, measure and pattern and the provision and resources are open ended, giving lots of opportunities to explore these.
White Rose Maths supports the small step progression of our lessons from Year 1 to Year 6. This works alongside the National Curriculum as it breaks objectives down into small steps. As well as this, we ensure our lessons are responsive to the need of our classes. We use formative and summative assessments to address misconceptions within a child’s understanding.
The structure to a maths lesson at Eastfield makes sure learning is built around rich mathematical vocabulary, a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach, where necessary and all lessons offer the children a chance to be stretched and challenged. Daily skills and drills, times tables practise and White Rose flashbacks, supports our children to recall information that has been previously taught.
We pride ourselves on children having a secure understanding of Number Bonds and Times Tables, as we believe this allows children to become fluent and confident within maths lessons. We ensure, through low-stake quizzing, that learning moves from the working memory to long-term memory.
The outcomes of our Mathematics curriculum
By the time children leave Eastfield, we want all pupils to be confident and competent mathematicians. They will be able to work with numbers and also develop the ability to reason, use known mathematical facts and explain their reasoning to a mathematical problem. It is important that pupils see that maths is not an isolated subject as they will be required, throughout their education, to apply the skills learnt in Maths to other areas of the curriculum and their everyday lives.
Please see the Eastfield scheme of learning map and the Eastfield yearly overview for EYFS, KS1 and KS2 below.
