Maths is the foundation for understanding the world and we want our children to know the purpose behind their learning and to apply their knowledge to their everyday lives.

At St. Michael’s, we provide high-quality Mathematics through our Explore Curriculum that is challenging, enjoyable and ambitious for all of our learners and builds a schema to support and develop children’s cognitive load. Underpinned by the National Curriculum, our Mathematics curriculum allows progression and skill for our children to have the opportunity to go beyond the National Curriculum in order to become fluent in number as well as being able to conquer Mathematical reasoning, with increasing articulacy and accuracy.

We encourage our children to take risks, explore Mathematics and make the connections needed to enjoy a greater depth of learning and secure their understanding . Our inclusive Mathematics curriculum is sequenced in an effective way, is adaptive and provides challenge for all children from EYFS up to Year 6 and our teachers choose to progress to new learning when our learners have a secure understanding and can apply their learned skills fluently.

Our curriculum aims to develop mathematical competencies and to have our children understand the power of Mathematics and how it can be applied across the curriculum. By the time our children reach the end of their Primary Mathematics journey, we endeavour for them to be able to use mathematics in different contexts, talk like a Mathematician by using the vocabulary they have obtained through explicit teaching and retrieval practice and have a mathematically curious mind.

Our Teaching & Learning Pedagogy

There are four main components to our lessons at St. Michael’s. Each part is crucial to our learners’ Mathematical understanding and progression throughout each lesson. These components are: Retrieve and Reason, I do We Do, You Do and Review. Our 4-part lesson shows consistency across our school and provides our children with a familiar structure to aid their learning.

1. Retrieve & Reason – this is a crucial part of teaching at our school and allows children to recall and use what they have learned in previous lessons, topics, terms and year groups; learn more and remember more. Retrieval helps to embed learning into the long term memory. We then work through a word problem so all of our children are challenged in their mathematical abilities and have the chance to talk like a Mathematician at the beginning of a lesson.
2. I Do, We Do – this is where the main teaching happens! Our teachers model and talk through what the children will achieve during the lessons and demonstrate strategies that help our children work independently. The children have the chance to explore their new learning through partner and whole class discussion during the ‘We Do’ part of our lesson. As the children begin to gain an understanding of their objective, they can choose to go on to work independently.
3. You do – the children get a chance to use what they have learned and put it into practice. This is an opportunity for our children to use their skills and different support is offered by our staff where needed. Worked examples are visible for the children as they embed their new skill.
4. Review – the children will self-assess or self/peer mark their work so get a good understanding of their progress during the lesson. We also review by challenging the children with reasoning questions, having group discussions and writing themselves a ‘top tip’ to remember. This part of the lesson can also be an opportunity for the class teacher to address misconceptions or re-teach a concept if needed. The ‘Review’ part of the lesson is all based around what the children need and can change on a lesson-by-lesson basis.

Talk like a Mathematician 

Our Mathematics curriculum aims to develop a deeper and higher level of Mathematical vocabulary and understanding for all of our children; EYFS to Year 6. The planning and development of our vocabulary is sequenced and explicitly taught to ensure knowledge and progression throughout our school. Vocabulary is taught and retrieved each day.

We use our whole school techniques such as ‘My turn, your turn’ and ‘Talk to your partner’ to allow children to use the vocabulary in context, become used to the new words and use them to articulate answers. The vocabulary is then used in lessons through oracy and writing through reasoning.

Example:

Children in EYFS are taught to use words linked to addition and subtraction, which they then apply and extend in KS1 and KS2 when learning how to use formal written methods, then developing onto multiplication and division and being able to use the vocabulary in problem solving and reasoning questions.

The Importance of Mathematics in Everyday Life

At St. Michael’s, we ensure that Maths is taught in context in all year groups, making use of our array of concrete manipulatives to represent equations in order to immerse our children into Maths. We expose our children to reasoning questions each day in order to open their mathematical line of enquiry and to delve into a deeper understanding of number. We integrate Maths into other subject areas and make explicit reference to it, in order to make links to our wide Explore Curriculum.

The impact of our curriculum will show through assessment. Before each new topic, we complete pre-topic assessment tasks that inform the planning and teaching of the unit of work. They provide an evidence base for what our children have retained and are able to process before new learning is applied.

We also ‘live mark’ as a form of formative assessment throughout lessons, which allows our teachers to support learners, address misconceptions, adapt and challenge where needed. This knowledge then impacts daily planning of Mathematics lessons to support and develop specific areas.

Summative assessment is used at the end of each term. Years 2 and 6 will complete their year group specific test papers and years 1, 3, 4 and 5 complete NFER tests. We then adopt a diagnostic approach to assessment and complete question level analysis; knowing where a child is and where they need to get to is at the heart of all of our teachers’ planning and is vital in ensuring children leave St. Michael’s as confident, fluent and life-long mathematicians.

Long term planning

The National Curriculum for Mathematics 2014 and the Early Learning Goals (Number, Shape Space & Measure) provide the long term planning for mathematics taught in the school. We base our planning around the White Rose Maths Hub scheme of learning from EYFS to Year 6. This is a scheme of learning that has been meticulously planning and developed to meet the aims of the National Curriculum. The schemes provide our teachers with exemplification for Mathematics objectives and are broken down into small steps of learning to enhance fluency and reasoning skills. We use small steps teaching to support mastery in Mathematics and to deepen understanding.

The long-term aim of the White Rose curriculum is to produce an ambitious, high-quality curriculum that is accessible to all learners. We want our children to become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics and White Rose embraces these aims, supports a CPA approach and gives guidance to help children become fluent mathematicians.

Each year, we participate in Liverpool Maths Party Day. This is a Mathematics enrichment opportunity for our children. The purpose of the day is to highlight and celebrate the role of Mathematics in our everyday lives.

High quality and enjoyable texts are woven into our curriculum across all year groups and are integrated into Maths where appropriate, allowing children to see Mathematical content in books and enjoy and support our whole school approach to improve reading. Our recommended Maths reading books can be found within each year group in our school. Children are encouraged to read books that include Maths as their reading for pleasure book or home reader.

Below are some helpful websites that our children can use to do some Mathematics at home. The children have log in details for some of the websites, but if your child is unsure, please ask their class teacher how they can log in. Enjoy!

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