Maths
Maths Curriculum Intent:
At St Michael’s, we use the White Rose Maths curriculum for mathematics across the school, which is an ambitious, mastery curriculum accessible to all pupils, building on skills and knowledge as our children progress from Reception to Year Six.
We want our pupils to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, to be able to reason and to solve problems, and the White Rose Maths curriculum embraces these aims, providing guidance to help all our pupils to become: visualisers who can make connections between different representations; describers who can discuss their thinking using mathematical vocabulary; and experimenters who want to learn more and have a love of mathematics. Our Maths long term plan can be found by clicking below:
Click on each of the following to see how skills and knowledge are built upon in each are of Maths:
Place Value Skills and Knowledge Progression
Addition and Subtraction Skills and Knowledge Progression
Multiplication and Division Skills and Knowledge Progression
Fractions Skills and Knowledge Progression
Ratio and Proportion Skills and Knowledge Progression
Algebra Skills and Knowledge Progression
Measurement Skills and Knowledge Progression
Geometry Skills and Knowledge Progression - Properties of Shapes
Geometry Skills and Knowledge Progression - Position, Direction and Movement
Statistics Skills and Knowledge Progression
Implementation:
The White Rose Maths curriculum is a mastery curriculum, where skills are taught in depth until children become fluent and have mastered each new skill, using small steps which each build on the step before. To learn mathematics effectively, some things have to be learned before others, e.g. place value needs to be understood before working with addition and subtraction, and addition needs to be learnt before looking at multiplication. In each year group, number skills and place value will be taught first, so that all other skills can be built on top of this. For some other areas, the order is not as crucial, e.g. Shapes and Statistics need to come after number, but don’t depend on each other, so the White Rose Curriculum mixes these so pupils have as wide a variety of mathematical experiences as possible in each term and year.
Our skills and knowledge progression documents show how skills are built upon in each year group and our long-term plans show what we will be teaching and when. We use a range of resources in the teaching of mathematics, and within each unit of learning, we move from concrete, to pictorial to more abstract representations to ensure a solid understanding of what is taught. Maths is timetabled each day for all year groups, with additional fluency activities taking place outside of the lesson to consolidate learning, such as activities using Times Tables Rockstars or Mathletics.
At St Michael’s, Maths is taught in mixed age classes and learning from each year group’s individual curriculum is carefully matched up to ensure the best possible order of learning. In 2023 - 2024, Maths is taught in the following groups:
Reception
Year 1 and 2
Year 3 and 4
Year 5 and 6
Impact:
The impact of our maths curriculum is regularly monitored through different methods of assessment: Children will complete short assessment activities at the end of each unit, as well as informally throughout lessons, allowing teachers to plan appropriate next steps for each child. They will also complete three end of term assessments throughout the year which are based on that term's learning.
Following the implementation of the curriculum we have chosen, we aim for our children to leave St Michael’s equipped with a range of skills which will enable them to succeed in the secondary Maths curriculum and beyond, believing in their own abilities in Maths and learning to love using Maths in later life.