MATHS
AIMS
The aims of the national curriculum for mathematics are to ensure that all pupils:
- 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.
By the end of year 6, children are expected to be ‘secondary ready’. To achieve this, children not only need to be fluent in their knowledge and recall of mathematical facts, but they also need to be competent and confident to be able to reason with and investigate concepts and also be able to apply them to solve problems. Therefore, once children become fluent in concepts at their year group/ stage in maths, they will then apply these concepts across the curriculum and use them for reasoning and solving problems. When they are able to do this, it is then that they are considered by the teacher to be fully secure in their knowledge and understanding at that stage.
The National Curriculum is designed as a year by year programme of study.
We assess children using the content and concepts at each stage of the curriculum. We also assess children’s skills at reasoning with these concepts and their ability to use them to investigate, solve problems and apply them across the curriculum.
We split each stage into 4 sub-stages to assess where the children are working within the curriculum. Children can be working within a stage at either: emerging, developing, securing or mastery. Children who are working at mastery within their stage will have an understanding of the mathematical concepts and will be working on more complex problem solving and application of these skills, within broader contexts. They will be accessing problem solving and reasoning challenges at greater depth. They will also be dedicated peer tutors to support other children with their learning. Our collaborative approach to learning within the classrooms supports this level of challenge for children who have mastered a mathematical concept.
At The Grange Primary School, we implement the Mastery approach to teaching maths, whereby children are taught concepts through the use of concrete resources, progressing onto visual representations (including bar models) and finally progressing to more abstract representations of concepts. We ensure that we present maths through a variety of contexts and representations to ensure that children fully apply their knowledge and understanding.
For more information on the National Curriculum 2014, please visit the website:
Support With Calculation
The following links will advise parents on how to support their child(ren) in using written calculation methods. The videos for the calculation strategies have been recorded by KS2 pupils at The Grange Primary School.