Maths

Maths at Warton St. Paul's 

At Warton St. Paul's we are passionate about having a firm foundation in Maths, which will enable our pupils to use mathematical concepts in the real world and support them with problem solving strategies.

Our Maths Subject Leader is Miss Dufour and she is responsible for ensuring our Maths Curriculum and resources suit our needs and are updated regularly to support our learning. 

Mrs Shepherd is our link Governor for Maths and she is regularly updated on our successes in the subject and areas that we are looking to develop further. 

Maths

Intent

Maths is a skill we use on a daily basis and is an essential part of everyday life. Therefore, mathematics forms an important part of our broad and balanced curriculum where 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 place great emphasis on 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; at KS2 it is designed to develop competencies to equip pupils for KS3 where they will build on KS2, make connections and solve increasingly sophisticated problems.

Implementation

Our Maths curriculum provides breadth and balance, is relevant and engaging and is differentiated to match the needs and abilities of all our children to ensure that all pupils are able to excel. As a school, we believe in the importance of following the concrete-pictorial-approach as a means to developing a solid understanding of mathematical concepts which can be applied in a variety of contexts through reasoning and problem solving challenges. Children receive a minimum of 5 maths lessons each week with additional sessions devoted to arithmetic and times tables.

From Reception to Year 6, we adhere to our calculation policy which outlines the progression of strategies and methods to be taught and we have an accompanying vocabulary progression document which we also follow. We have created our medium-term plans with small steps to suit and benefit the needs of our children so that connections between units of learning are easier to recognise. Our maths curriculum is supported through the implementation of resources from ‘Classroom Secrets’ and 'White Rose,' which use ‘small steps’ to break down the teaching sequence into small, achievable steps. For children who understand a concept quicker, challenges are used to deepen and challenge learners further within the curriculum area.

Progression documents such as our calculation policy are carefully used to ensure that children are not being stretched outside their year group but rather deepened within it. 

Daily assessment is incorporated throughout the lesson through live and verbal feedback. Termly NFER assessments are used as a diagnostic tool to ensure that teachers are adapting learning to meet the needs of all children and ensure that any necessary interventions are targeted specifically to meet the needs of children.

Times tables play an important part in our maths learning, with children developing their fluency in rapid recall of tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4. While the rapid recall of times tables are being developed, children are also learning how to apply and manipulate their understanding of this to reason and solve problems. 

Impact

By the end of Year 6, transitioning to secondary school, we aspire that a St Pauls mathematician will have developed a bank of efficient and accurate skills that can be used to calculate effectively. Children will be able to apply these calculation skills and understanding of other areas to become confident and resilient problem-solvers with the ability to reason and articulate their ideas mathematically. In addition, children will have the language to be able to justify, reason and explain their answers.