Quarry Mount Primary SchoolMaths
At Quarry Mount, we aim to create lifelong mathematicians, who are able to use their skills in a variety of contexts across the curriculum and in everyday life. All children are encouraged to be independent learners, who are always ready for the next stage of their educational journey. The curriculum we follow provides children with the opportunity to make outstanding progress in Maths. It is an ambitious curriculum which is designed to give all learners, including disadvantaged and those with SEND the knowledge that they need to succeed in life. The school understands that speaking English as an additional language is a barrier for a significant proportion of pupils. Therefore, pupils have the opportunity to frequently use new vocabulary in a variety of ways and solve problems orally with an emphasis on mathematical language. Teachers provide carefully worded sentence frames to support children to explain their work to the best of their ability. A mastery approach is used to ensure that pupils have the opportunity to achieve a greater level of understanding – all children are encouraged to be a master at their own learning and to strive to be the best that they can be!
Children are taught maths on a daily basis in all year groups. All areas of the curriculum are taught using the White Rose Maths Scheme. Each year group studies all the core maths topics in the national curriculum: number, measure, geometry and statistics. Children will be provided with opportunities within every maths lessons to consolidate new learning and develop reasoning and problem-solving skills, including skills that can be applied to real life situations.
The White Rose Maths scheme uses a mastery approach to maths teaching. This is a research-driven teaching and learning method that meets the goals of the National Curriculum.
What does it mean in practice? In summary, a mastery approach…
- Puts numbers first: The scheme has number at its heart, because we believe confidence with numbers is the first step to competency in the curriculum as a whole.
- Puts depth before breadth: we reinforce knowledge again and again.
- Encourages collaboration: children can progress through the schemes as a group, supporting each other as they learn.
- Focuses on fluency, reasoning and problem solving: it gives children the skills they need to become competent mathematicians.
Teachers plan well-resourced lessons with stages A -E for each learning objective. Stages will start with concrete resourced based learning followed by teacher led learning, application of skills tasks, reasoning tasks and finally problem-solving tasks to prove mastery of a skill. Previous learning is built upon throughout year groups by integrating new knowledge into larger concepts. Teachers will address misconceptions through live marking in lessons and assess children throughout the lesson so that every child makes the maximum amount of progress within a lesson. This assessment will be then used to inform future teaching.
Children in the Foundation Stage are at the beginning of their mastery journey and a deep understanding of number is seen as crucial in their development. We use the White Rose ‘Building Strong Foundations’ Maths scheme to support us to deliver high quality teaching. As in KS1 and KS2, retrieval practice is common when children are learning to count and activities, involving practical resources such as Numicon, help children with their cognitive load and information retention. Maths is a key theme throughout learning areas ensuring that mathematical understanding and challenge is implemented in the children’s daily play and routine.
How can I support my child with their maths at home?
We use Times Tables Rockstars in school to help pupils learn their time tables.
When it comes to times tables, speed AND accuracy are important. The more facts your child remembers, the easier it is for them to do harder calculations. Times Table Rock Stars is a fun and challenging programme designed to help pupils master the times tables! To be a Times Table Rock Star you need to answer any multiplication fact up to 12×12 in less than 3 seconds!
The log in they use in school will also work at home so they can practise their time tables at home. If your child has misplaced their log in please ask their class teacher for a new one.
Click the link for a user guide on how to play at home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZxZbRVvbYM
We have a TT Rockstars celebration in a weekly in assembly to celebrate children who have been working on their tables at home. The most ‘rocking’ pupil in each class is displayed on our ‘Hall of Fame!’ wall in the school hall.
For the younger pupils we have a subscription to NumBots for the children to use at home. NumBots is all about every child achieving the “triple win” of understanding, recall and fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so that they move from counting to calculating. If your child has misplaced their log in please ask their class teacher for a new one.
Click the link for a user guide on how to play at home.