Charlestown Community Primary SchoolMathematics
Overview of How Maths is Taught
At Charlestown Community Primary School, our maths curriculum intends to ensure that our children:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
- Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
- Can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.
The aim of our maths curriculum is to ensure children apply mastery skills. We follow the White Rose maths scheme used to develop and extend fluency, reasoning and problem solving.
At Charlestown, we believe that children should be confident and articulate mathematicians who enjoy the wide variety of challenges a maths lesson can present. We want our pupils to be able to approach mathematically challenging activities using efficient mental and written methods.
At Charlestown, we believe that deepening children’s mathematical knowledge will not only secure the children’s understanding of maths concepts but also close the gap between those at the top and lower attaining children. All pupils need access to these concepts and ideas in every mathematics lesson and to the rich connections between them.
With this in mind, we teach maths for mastery which is an engaging style which strives to enhance children’s understanding of mathematical concepts. Mastery is designed to develop children’s fluency in understanding and allow them to adapt and see connections between key concepts and not having to resort to rote learning. Essentially, making them more resilient and independent learners.
At Charlestown, we follow “White Rose Maths” which breaks our lessons into 4 steps. We begin every lesson with Rolling Numbers and a recap. The aim of this is to solidify children’s knowledge of times tables and to have a chance to use and apply the skills they have learnt in previous learning.
The next step is, Let’s Learn. Here children are taught new skills by the teacher and the children are encouraged to discuss the new concepts and to put them into practice. The learning will vary from new strategies to applying them in different contexts.
The next stage is, Guided Practice. In this part of the lesson, children are given the opportunity to practice the new skills they’ve gained whilst being guided by staff. Teachers will guide this section of the learning by questioning to focus the children’s thought process on reaching a solution to the problem. The aim of this is for children to develop a deeper understanding of the new concept before moving onto independent work.
When completed, the children move onto the Independent Practice. Here children have the chance to demonstrate their understanding of the mathematical concept by completing tasks of increasing difficulty.
When possible, children that are not at age related expectations will receive pre-teaching to prepare them for the following lesson; giving them a confidence boost and a head start. Therapy sessions will also be used to reinforce recently taught lessons and plug any gaps. We believe that this gives the children more confidence within class and accelerates their learning.
We are reviewing our maths programme and teaching at the moment. During Autumn term of the 2023-2024 school year, we will be trialing the use PIXL therapies to fill any gaps in the children's learning from previous years.