Maths

Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject. (National Curriculum 2014)

From Reception to Key Stage 1 we aim to:

develop and improve their skills in counting.
 understand and use numbers.
calculate simple addition and subtraction problems.
describe shapes, spaces, and measures.

The aims of the 2014 National Curriculum are for our pupils to:

Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics through varied and frequent practice with complexity increasing over time.
Develop conceptual understanding and ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
Reason mathematically; follow a line of enquiry, conjecture relationships and generalisations.
 Develop an argument, justification and proof by using mathematical language.
Problem solve by applying knowledge to a variety of routine and non-routine problems. Breaking down problems into simpler steps and persevering in answering.

At Eslington, we teach stage not age. Each year group / stage has their own long-term plan, and each term is broken down into small steps to ensure knowledge and skills progress throughout each year group. Our lesson’s connect prior learning to ensure all can access the new learning and identifies carefully sequenced steps in progression to build secure understanding.

All mathematical examples, representations and models are carefully planned to expose the structure of mathematical concepts and emphasise connections, enabling pupils to develop a deep knowledge of Mathematics. Procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are developed in tandem. Practice is a vital part of learning, but the practice must be designed to both reinforce pupils’ procedural fluency and develop their conceptual understanding.

Pupils are taught through whole-class interactive teaching, enabling all to master the concepts necessary for the next part of the curriculum sequence. In a typical lesson, the teacher leads back and forth interaction, including questioning, short tasks, explanation, demonstration, and discussion, enabling pupils to think, reason and apply their knowledge to solve problems. The use of precise mathematical language enables all pupils to communicate their reasoning and thinking effectively. Key number facts are learnt to automaticity, and other key mathematical facts are learned deeply and practised regularly, to avoid cognitive overload in working memory and enable pupils to focus on new learning.

Pupil progress is based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Individual pupil progress is carefully tracked and monitored throughout the school year. As part of our practice, teaching staff at Eslington use each child’s EHCP targets as the starting point when identifying potential barriers to learning. Teachers gather as much information as possible from the pupils’ individual paperwork and cross reference it with further data extrapolated from cognitive tests that are completed each year with the children. From this, teachers then write detailed learning plans that clearly identify what the specific barriers are for each child and strategies to help them overcome each one.

At Eslington, pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. When a child is identified as not making satisfactory progress, they are put forward to receive additional learning support interventions. These are in addition to their whole-class lessons and are designed to provide a personalised learning programme to help address the areas of concern that may prevent progress being made.