Maths at Jewell Academy
INTENT
The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics.
- Are able to reason mathematically.
- Can solve problems by applying their Mathematics.
At Jewell Academy, we recognise mathematics as being key to future life skills and we are committed to ensuring that the children are able to recognise the importance of maths in the wider world. We want them to know and understand that it is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment.
Our maths curriculum is designed to be accessible to all and will maximise the development of every child’s ability and academic achievement so that they can use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives, in a range of different contexts.
We aim to foster a love of mathematics, so that children go through life as confident, enthusiastic and resilient mathematicians. We want all children to enjoy maths and to experience success in the subject, by providing them with creative and engaging learning opportunities. This will enable them to make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems.
IMPLEMENTATION
At Jewell Academy, children study maths daily, covering a broad and balanced mathematical curriculum including elements of number, calculation, geometry, measures and statistics. Alongside daily maths sessions, an additional 15 minutes a day is spent focusing on arithmetic to increase confidence, accuracy and instant recall of key facts such as addition facts to 10 and 20 and multiplication tables up to 12 x 12.
We have adopted the White Rose Maths (WRM) Curriculum. This curriculum covers all the content of the National Curriculum and is designed to provide the most up to date processes and procedures in Mathematics teaching and learning, developing children into mathematical thinkers. The WRM curriculum is developed to produce strong, secure learning and real progress by combining the best of both ‘mastery’ and ‘spiral’ approaches.
Mastery approach – spending longer on topics to help gain deeper understanding, making connections, and a fundamental belief that, through effort, all children are capable of understanding, doing and improving at mathematics.
Spiral approach – spending a good chunk of time on a topic does not mean that all children will ‘master’ it the first time they see it. They need to see it again and again in different contexts and in different years to help them truly develop their understanding on their journey to mastery, so many opportunities to revisit and reinforce are built in.
The mastery approach incorporates objects, pictures, words, numbers and symbols to help children explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enrich their learning experience and deepen understanding. When introduced to a key new concept, children will have the opportunity to build competency and are encouraged to physically represent mathematical concepts. Objects and pictures are used to demonstrate and visualise abstract ideas, alongside numbers and symbols.
Concrete – children have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing.
Pictorial – children then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can then be used to reason and solve problems.
Abstract – With the foundations firmly laid, children can move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.
Alongside learning the National Curriculum objectives, WRM encourages the children to develop as:
Visualisers – the CPA approach helps children understand mathematics and make connections between different representations.
Describers – great emphasis is placed on mathematical language and questioning so children can discuss the mathematics they are doing, and so support them to take ideas further.
Experimenters – as well as being fluent mathematicians, children are inspired to love and learn more about mathematics.
Times Tables
From the 2019/20 academic year onwards, schools in England are required to administer an online multiplication tables check (MTC) to year 4 pupils. The purpose of the MTC is to determine whether pupils can recall their multiplication tables fluently, which is essential for future success in mathematics. It will help schools to identify pupils who have not yet mastered their multiplication tables, so that additional support can be provided. To support the children with their multiplication practice we use ‘Times Table Rockstars’ as an online and fun learning platform to be used in the classroom and at home.
IMPACT
By the time the children leave Jewell Academy, we want them to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, with the ability to recall and apply knowledge accurately and rapidly to be able to reason and to solve problems.
We aim that each child achieves the objectives (expected standard) for their year group and develops their ability to use this knowledge and understanding of key skills to solve problems by applying mathematical facts and strategies to a variety of situations, including those which model real-life scenarios.
Calculation Policy
Should you wish to understand more about how we teach addition, subtraction, multiplication and division please see the link to our calculation policy.
Addition and Subtraction Calculation Policy
Multiplication and Division Calculation Policy