Maths

Intent 

At Wildground Federation we believe that Maths should be purposeful and be essential for all children for life; maths skills, knowledge, understanding and attributes are invaluable in equipping a child for the next stage of their learning journey to ensure that possibilities are not limited.

We aim that all pupils:

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to calculate, recall, manipulate and apply knowledge rapidly, flexibly and accurately.
• Can solve problems and puzzles by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication and levels of variation having spotted patterns, made links and connections, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios.
• Can reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, make predictions and estimates, think, develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.

Implementation 

At Wildground Federation maths is taught to meet the statutory requirements of the EYFS Framework and the National Curriculum.  In EYFS the curriculum is delivered through continuous provision, which is available to all children all of the time, with a balance between number and shape/space and measures.  Enhancements are planned and provided both indoors and outdoors for children to access within continuous provision.  Alongside these opportunities, maths is also taught directly by the teacher on an individual and/or group basis across the week with a daily Maths Meet for the whole class to support the development and understanding of early maths concepts.  Within story time a book with a maths theme can be read to develop language and maths within a real context. 

In KS1 and KS2 Maths is taught  daily through a discreet maths lesson and a Maths Meet using Maths No Problem.  Maths is also taught within the wider curriculum to enable purposeful links to be made and to develop their ability to make links with wider life experiences.  Some of this learning is planned consciously and deliberately and some occurs naturally through child initiated learning or as opportunities arise.  

Our Maths curriculum is planned deliberately to help the learner learn through a conceptual approach using small steps, revisiting concepts through a spiral pathway to extend and deepen mathematical knowledge and skills. In KS1 and KS2 there is a greater emphasis on place value and number.  Children are taught together, in most cases, to demonstrate a secure understanding so providing full and inclusive access.  Problem solving and heuristics underpin the maths curriculum with multiple methods modelled and used to solve problems.  Some problems are routine and some are non routine but within all problems there is variation of both procedure and concept.  Within the teaching of maths, use of clear sentence structures and mathematical language is demonstrated and children are encouraged and expected to draw, model and/or verbalise their mathematical thinking.  Learning environments provide resources for children to access independently and reflect the spiral curriculum and key vocabulary needed.  Children are actively encouraged to share their thinking using different representations and development of resilience through a  growth mind-set enables a sense of success for all children.  Staff ask open ended questions to enable to children to reason and justify. 

At a mastery level we feel a learner has really understood a mathematical concept, idea or technique they can:

• describe it in his or her own words
• explain it to someone else
• represent it in a variety of ways
• make up his or her own examples of it
• see connections between it and other facts or ideas
• recognise it in new situations and contexts
• make use of it in various ways, including in new situations