Mathematics
At Viewley Hill Academy, we believe that all children ‘Can do’ mathematics; therefore, all children can reach a mastery level and succeed. We intend for all children to be secure in the key age related content and reach the expected standards at EYFS, Key Stages 1 and 2, and exceed them where they can. It is our intent that pupils build their learning progressively from year to year.
- We want our children to be fluent mathematicians. Procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are developed in tandem because each supports the development of the other. Understanding the relative size of numbers at all levels and being able to move fluently between operations and representations is key to success.
- We want our children to be ‘brave mathematicians’ – not being afraid to get the answer wrong and try again. As they gain confidence we want them to know that there is often more than one way to solve a problem and that having a try, playing with numbers and gaining a sense of an ‘appropriate answer’ are key qualities of a mathematician.
- We aim for our children to develop a real love for mathematics and understand that it underpins all subjects and opportunities in life.
To achieve this, at Viewley Hill, the daily maths lesson from Y1 will follow the LET Mathematics Curriculum alongside the National Curriculum with key understanding of place value, number operations and related problem solving, reasoning and justification taking priority. In Early Years the main maths lesson is based on NCETM Mastering Number. There is a main focus on arithmetic – as we want our pupils to be fluent in arithmetic strategies which will enable them to tackle reasoning and problem solving exercises more efficiently.
- There will be several variations of the same and related content to facilitate children’s overlearning, varied fluency and confidence in mathematical concepts. We will ‘over–teach’ concepts, in the core areas of: number and place value, the four operations, times table and division facts.
- Our Pupils are taught through whole-class interactive teaching, where the focus is on all pupils working together on the same lesson content at the same time. However, some children might need to use concrete/pictorial aids to be able to be successful – adaptive teaching is central to our model. This ensures that all can master concepts before moving to the next part of the curriculum sequence, allowing no pupil to be left behind.
- All of the children do the fluency task (stretch for fast workers) then varied fluency and think. Deepening tasks are always ready for the more able.
- If a pupil fails to grasp a concept or procedure, this is identified quickly and where possible same day intervention (SDI) ensures the pupil is ready to move forward with the whole class in the next lesson. Intervention can also be in the form of pre-teaching and catch up sessions, based on specific issues and content.
- Our pupils are taught to solve problems and problems get increasingly harder – deliberate practice not an add on for fast workers. We teach why strategies can be used with similar problems. We want our pupils to have the component knowledge to solve problems.
- In addition to a daily mathematics lesson our children have a foundational facts lesson to ensure all children have a secure basis of Number facts to support their learning
- Key facts such as multiplication tables and addition/subtraction facts within 10 are learnt automaticity to avoid cognitive overload in the working memory and enable pupils to focus on new concepts.
- From Y1, every morning, before registration, the children will practise their prior learning (retrieval) to afford daily recall opportunities. We believe that daily retrieval practice of important taught concepts will strengthen the neural pathways and aid retention of learning. Teachers follow the retrieval sequence for each year group. This is carefully designed and the sequence is deliberately chosen. We believe in “Every child retrieving maths every day; every gap being noticed and addressed every day.”
This culture informs the intent of our maths curriculum: all children to be factually fluent, procedurally fluent and flexibly fluent so that they can reason to solve problems. We know this intent will give them the best possible chance to master maths at secondary school and have confidence in the workplace and everyday life situations. We intend for our children to be life-long lovers of maths. Our curriculum is designed so that all children learn content in the right order and for the right amount of time.
