Earlham Primary School

Our Maths Curriculum

Intent

• At Earlham, we believe that maths is not just a subject, it is a life skill.
• Maths is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment;
• Our high-quality maths education provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.
• Our aim is that children are numerically fluent, and able to problem solve and reason mathematically.

Implementation

• We follow the National curriculum. Learning is sequenced to build on the knowledge acquired in previous years.
• We use the White Rose Maths schemes of learning as a planning tool, including their end of unit assessments.
• We follow the CPA approach when teaching new concepts.
• Every lesson is carefully planned and resourced to ensure no time is wasted during lesson time and tailored to the needs of the children.
• Our daily maths lesson is divided into two sessions and is based around the Shanghai model. The first session involves the teacher teaching a mathematical concept to all the children, followed by an independent task and self-assessment carried out by the pupils. The second session follows up on the first one involving activities ‘Reteach,’ if the children have not sufficiently grasped the concept, ‘Practice’ if they have but need further practice and ‘Mastery’ to deepen their learning around this concept.
•  This prompt ‘in lesson’ assessment and the opportunity to act upon the feedback that day supports rapid progress.

“Visible teaching and learning occurs when there is deliberate practice aimed at attaining mastery of the goal, when there is feedback given and sought, and when there are active, passionate, and engaging people (teacher, students, peers) participating in the act of learning’’ (Hattie,2009;p.22).

KS1:

• The first session will be assessed by the teachers using R/P/M.
• The second session is self-assessed by the children using different smiley faces to show how they feel they have met the learning objective. There are 3 faces: one shows that the children feel they have met the LO, second one shows they are working towards it and the final one shows they feel they haven’t met it.
• Both the first and second sessions will be acknowledge marked by the teacher and any misconceptions addressed.

KS2:

• The first session will be self-assessed by the children using R, P, and M.
• The second session will be self-assessed by the children using the sentence ‘I have learnt……’
• Peer and self assessment can also be utilised during these sessions
• Both the first and second sessions will be acknowledged and marked by the teacher and any misconceptions addressed.
• We are passionate about ensuring that our children can communicate mathematically in order to reason mathematically, therefore carefully planned and structured journaling opportunities allow children to express themselves mathematically in context, as well as allow them to demonstrate their reasoning ability.
• Children use subject specific vocabulary, as well as sentence stems in their reasoning responses and when explaining mathematical concepts orally.
• We set high expectations for our EAL/SEND and lower 20% children. We scaffold up so all children can achieve the learning objectives, rather than differentiate down.
• We conduct weekly times table tests to support fluency.
• Children complete times tables tests on TT Rockstars three times a week at home.
• We explicitly teach times table skills daily in year 3 and year 4.
• We know that maths matters in everyday life, for household budgeting and economics, employment and general financial literacy, and pupils are given real world challenges to manage a budget during our whole school Money Money Money project.

Impact

• The White Rose Maths scheme of learning ensures that all children are given the opportunity to revisit learning, whilst progressing through the current curriculum content. 
• At Earlham, we strongly believe in timely intervention. The structure of our two part lessons allow misconceptions to be identified and addressed promptly, resulting in faster progress. This also allows out SEND/EAL children to feel successful in the subject.
• Furthermore, research shows having a short break in between helps retain information and it is clear this is working due to our coincidentally excellent maths results.
• Earlham’s unique mastery and in lesson intervention approach supports our children to learn more and remember more of their maths knowledge.
• Our data shows we are consistently above the National average expectations and this down to the challenge and high expectations we set our children throughout the school.