Maths - Our Journey Towards Mastery
Southroyd Primary School Mathematics Visions and Aims – Our Journey Towards Mastery
At Southroyd Primary School we aim to empower our children to foster a growth mindset with a ‘Can do’ attitude in mathematics. We encourage children to develop their knowledge and understanding of mathematics and aim for all pupils to enjoy and achieve in mathematics and become confident, able mathematicians.
We aim that all pupils:
· Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
· Can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including real-life scenarios and in more unfamiliar contexts.
· Can reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry; develop the ability to work systematically and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.
Here at Southroyd we aim to support pupils to work mathematically, reason and problem solve in all lessons. Teachers will use a very wide range of teaching strategies to stimulate all pupils’ active participation in their learning together with innovative and imaginative resources, including practical activities and, where appropriate, the outdoor environment.
To aid fluency each class runs a Maths Olympics session three times a week .Targets from these sessions are taken from KIRFS(Known Instant Recall Facts) Through practical tasks and board games children become more confident and have a firmer grasp of key number facts. These sessions are further supported by our Out Of This World Passport scheme which lets parents work in partnership with school to help their child secure times tables knowledge. Mathletics is an ICT web based programme which is also widely used across school, certificates are routinely celebrated and differentiated learning tasks are set . Mathletics lunchtime clubs continue to be popular with pupils.
You can find out more about how to help your child at Southroyd and see our calculation policy on the Learning link at the top of the page.
The Southroyd Calculation Policy
You can find out more about the expectations at each year group, in maths, by clicking here.
Our beliefs:
We believe that ability within Mathematics is not fixed. We are developing the mindsets of children and adults alike to develop a growth mindset (Carol Dweck 2017) and a ‘can do’ attitude towards mathematics. We believe that through quality first teaching and intelligent practice; children learning together and immediate intervention that all children have the potential to ‘go deeper’ and broaden their understanding of mathematical concepts. Implementing effective talk strategies are at the core of what we do to allow children to develop as mathematicians.
Our definition of mastery: At Southroyd Primary School we have a core set of principles and beliefs for achieving mastery in mathematics. This includes a belief that all pupils are capable of understanding and doing mathematics. Pupils are neither ‘born with the maths gene’ or ‘just no good at maths’. With good teaching, appropriate resources , effort and a ‘can do’ attitude all children can achieve and enjoy mathematics.
Mastery is not just being able to memorise key facts and procedures and to answer test questions accurately and quickly. Mastery involves knowing why as well as knowing that and knowing how. It means being able to use one another’s knowledge appropriately, flexibly and creatively and to apply it in new and unfamiliar situations.
For all maths concepts, teachers need to ensure that children are challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems. After developing fluency, children need to show that they can apply their knowledge in mathematics and then move on even further to prove they have mastered the concept.
Our Mathematics in Mastery Curriculum:
From Early Years to year 6 we have developed our curriculum to allow teachers and learners to achieve a secure and deep understanding of each mathematical concept. It is designed to give us the opportunity to address key points individually, ensure that children have a secure and deep understanding of those points, before offering the opportunity to ‘go deeper’ within them. In Early Years we are adopting a mastery approach whereby children explore counting, sorting and pattern making in a wide range of contexts – exploring maths through talk and play will underpin their learning.
Mastery teaching and learning: In every mathematics lesson you will see:
· Quality first teaching, tailored to meet the needs of the learners in each class, and immediate intervention to address gaps on learning where necessary,
· Resilient learners with growth mindsets and a ‘we can’ attitude to maths, whatever their previous level of attainment,
· Teachers using high quality questioning to explore children’s understanding and develop it further,
· Teachers making use of misconceptions to further understanding of key concepts,
· Teachers using a range of methods to explore key mathematical concepts, appeal to pupils’ different styles of learning, employing concrete, pictorial and abstract representations of mathematical concepts,
· ‘Top talk’ strategies at the core of our teaching strategies,
· Learners being given the opportunity, through careful planning, to ‘linger longer’ on and ‘go deeper’ in mathematical concepts,
· Pupils learning together,
· Development of fluency, problem solving and reasoning.
Planning, learning and teaching:
Southroyd Primary School follows a lesson style of concrete-pictorial-abstract using the White Rose Maths Hub as our long, and medium term planning guide. Teachers ensure that weekly planning includes reasoning and problem solving as well as fluency. We ensure that reasoning is at the core of every lesson – the children know that they need to explain why their answer is correct and how they worked it out. After we are certain that they have truly mastered a concept, the children then apply their knowledge to problem solving activities.
