Mathematics at Brightwell
"We are Mathematicians"
Curriculum Intent
At Brightwell School, we have chosen to follow White Rose Maths to form the core basis of our curriculum. White Rose has been influenced, inspired and informed by the work of leading maths researchers and practitioners from around the world and mirrors our belief that every child can do maths.
Maths is a skill we use on a daily basis and is an essential part of everyday life and so we endeavour to ensure that children develop an enjoyment and enthusiasm for maths that will stay with them throughout their lives and empower them in future life. We believe that unlocking mathematical fluency is an essential life skill for all learners and is a pre-requisite to being able to reason and solve problems mathematically. Our aim is to develop a positive culture of deep understanding, confidence and competence in maths that produces strong, secure learning. As a school, we recognise that the key to unlocking the potential in our children is through the development of basic mathematical skills and the understanding of mathematical concepts. We therefore encourage the use of concrete resources and pictorial representations at all ages, to enable children to fully understand the concepts and principals, when presented with abstract calculations and questions. Our maths curriculum is progressive and is designed to develop competencies to equip pupils for KS3 where they will build on KS1 and KS2, make connections and solve increasingly sophisticated problems.
Our maths teaching is underpinned by the belief that all children need a deep understanding of the mathematics they are learning. This is what we mean by 'mastery' - there is one set of mathematical concepts for all which we ensure all pupils have access to. Mastery is, therefore, the aim for all children, hence we have an ambitious, connected maths curriculum for all, which develops our pupils into mathematical thinkers.
Curriculum Implementation
One of the key reasons we chose to follow the White Rose scheme was because of the careful sequencing of concepts, skills and topics it had. We have created our medium-term plans in line with their clear progression of units and, while teachers do have some flexibility to make alterations to the lesson content to suit and benefit the specific needs of our children so that they are all able to make the right connections between units of learning, every year group always starts the new academic year off by focusing on embedding the basics of place value and calculation work (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) as we believe these are, without doubt, the key foundation blocks all children need to have in place in order to go on and be successful in other areas of maths.
The White Rose scheme uses a ‘small steps’ approach which allows us to break down the teaching sequence into small, achievable steps. Within these small steps, our consistent lesson structure provides children with opportunities to recall and retrieve prior learning (daily lessons always start with Flashback 4) and develop their fluency, reasoning and problem solving skills through written tasks. Children are taught through clear modelling and have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of key mathematical concepts. This mastery approach incorporates using objects, pictures, words and numbers across all age groups to help children explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enrich their learning experience and deepen understanding at all levels. Where children require additional support, ‘scaffolds’ are used to ensure that they have secured the small step before moving on. These ‘scaffolds’ may be in the form of returning to concrete resources or pictorial representations. For children who understand a concept quicker, challenges are used to encourage a deeper level thinking within a concept - these are evident in children’s books. Progression documents, such as our own calculation policy, the White Rose progression and the National Curriculum coverage information, are carefully used to ensure that there is a consistent approach to the mathematical language being used and to ensure that children’s learning is not being stretched outside their year group but rather broadened and deepened within it.
Assessment informs the teaching and learning sequence - all lessons begin with a short assessment to support retrieval practice and develop long-term memory and then on-going formative assessment during every lesson helps teachers to identify the children who need more support to achieve the intended outcome and who are ready for greater stretch and challenge through planned questioning or additional activities. Verbal and/or written feedback is given on children’s learning every day in line with our feedback policy. Summative assessment comes in the form of end of topic mini-assessments and the use of NFER tests.
Curriculum Impact
The impact of our mathematics curriculum is that children understand the relevance and importance of what they are learning in relation to real world concepts. We want them to have a positive view of their maths and know that it is a vital life skill that they will rely on in many areas of their daily life.
By the end of Year 6, we aspire that a Brightwell mathematician will have developed a bank of efficient and accurate skills that can be used to calculate effectively and fully understand mathematical concepts rather than ‘just doing’ them. We want our children to demonstrate a quick recall of facts and procedures (including times tables) and be able to apply their skills and understanding across the different areas of maths in order to become confident and resilient problem-solvers with the ability to reason and articulate their ideas mathematically.
At an age appropriate level, we expect the vast majority of our children to be able to:
- Use mathematical concepts, facts and procedures appropriately, flexibly and fluently
- Have a sufficient depth of knowledge and understanding to reason and explain mathematical concepts and procedures and use them to solve a variety of problems.
- Recall key number facts e.g. number bonds and times tables with speed and accuracy and use them to calculate and work out unknown facts.
Please see our curriculum overviews on the class pages for further details of what the children are learning.
