Earlham Primary School

Earlham follows a mastery approach to maths using the White Rose Maths scheme of work.  

Lesson structure

Our maths lesson is divided into two sessions. In the first session the teacher teaches the concept to all the children who then complete an independent task and self-assessment. Each teacher assesses children’s work and allocates work for the second session. This follow up work builds on the learning from the first session, and involves differentiated activities (Reteach, Practice and Mastery). Reteach is when a child needs more support from the teacher; practice is when a child shows some understanding of the concept but needs consolidation; and mastery is when a child shows they are ready to apply the concept they have learnt. This prompt assessment provides immediate feedback and supports our pupils to make rapid progress in maths. 

Hands on learning

At Earlham we take great pride in getting children to bring learning to life! We use a range on concrete (counters, dice, cubes etc), pictorial (drawing counters, objects, bar models) and abstract (column method, mental strategies) approaches to allow children to gain the mastery greater depth understanding. We shape our children to become independent, reflective thinkers, whose mathematical skills can also support them across the curriculum (in science, geography etc). 

Taking maths outside the classroom

We strongly believe in giving our children real life contexts to apply their knowledge and skills. Our children regularly visit West Ham Park to do maths trails! These involve different tasks such as estimating and measuring trees, benches and flower pots. It is a wonderful experience for the children (and our parent helpers too!). Children thoroughly enjoy using their problem solving skills to solve the tasks given to them. 
More recently Year 4 went to a Polish supermarket to learn how to handle money and a budget. Children were given a list of ingredients they needed to make Polish bread, and a budget of £5. Children had to use mental strategies to check how much money they had spent, how much they had left and how much change they would get. At the same time, children were learning to budget to ensure they could buy all the ingredients within their £5 limit. These are all life skills they will need for the future - and their baking tasted delicious! 

Money Money Money Week

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. During this week we have specialist lessons on budgeting and saving, hold a careers fair for Year 6 to intgroduce them to the world of work, and give children the opportunity to become entrepreneurs and design and build a product to pitch in our very own Dragon's Den!

Parent workshops

At Earlham, we believe parent involvement in their children’s learning is vital. Parents are shown the methods our children use for the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), and given information about the mastery approach we use in class to deepen understanding. This helps parents  to support their child(ren) at home. 

Times tables

You may have heard announcements about the Multiplication Tables Check coming in for Year 4 children. Maths is a big subject, and we all know there’s more to it than times tables, and there’s more to times tables than learning them off by heart, however we know that knowing their times tables helps a child in all areas of their maths learning. We therefore we currently test children weekly on their timetables, as well as encourage children to use TT Rock Stars daily (even for 5 minutes before school).

We are delighted to host times table tournaments, as we want fluency in calculations to be at the forefront of our curriculum. It also prepares our pupils for the formal times table test at the end of Year 4 and builds on fluency in problem solving. The aim of the competition is to be the quickest and most accurate at recalling and applying knowledge of times tables.

We provide children in Years 3 and 4 with a times tables book to continue to practice at home with parents/carers.