Mathematics Statement of Intent
Our curriculum intent is to inspire all our pupils to have the confidence to use maths as a tool for life, relish challenge and develop flexible thinking, coming from a deep and concrete understanding of the subject.
We aim to ensure that children leave primary school as confident and independent mathematicians with the acquired skills and knowledge of the three core areas of the National Curriculum: fluency, reasoning and problem-solving. We have adopted a mastery approach to ensure these skills are embedded within all Maths lessons and developed consistently over time in an engaging and creative way.
Underpinning this pedagogy of mastery is a belief that all children can achieve in Maths. Our medium-term and weekly planning is carefully sequenced and designed to allow children to build on prior knowledge. Within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), children are encouraged to experiment with number, shape, space and measure as way of developing their curiosity and interest in Maths. Throughout KS1 and KS2, we ensure children have varied and frequent practice of their maths skills, focusing on their ability to recall and apply their knowledge accurately and rapidly. Varied opportunities are provided to develop the children’s mathematical thinking and reasoning skills, ensuring that knowledge can be recalled and applied in different contexts. Our aim is to help children use their number sense and make rich connections across all areas of maths, as well as across the broader curriculum. Challenging the children to explain, justify and prove their thoughts is an important part of our daily Maths discussions, both broadening and deepening the children’s mathematical understanding.
To ensure children acquire a deep, sustained and adaptable understanding of mathematical concepts, we employ a variety of mastery strategies in the classroom: teaching for conceptual understanding is at the forefront of our teaching. We hold high expectations for all children, and we are committed to developing children’s enjoyment in Maths. We aim to provide them with enjoyable experiences, which are relatable to their everyday lives. Mathematical vocabulary plays an important part in achieving success and children are encouraged to communicate their thoughts to adults and peers fluently using accurate mathematical vocabulary. Open-ended questions are integrated into lessons and children are taught to think logically, systematically and independently to solve problems by using the appropriate skills, concepts and knowledge.
As part of the Sheringdale mathematics curriculum, we use the Power Maths scheme of work from Reception to Year 6. This was carefully chosen to meet the needs of our children. Power Maths is a maths mastery resource that has been designed for UK schools based on research and extensive experience of teaching and learning around the world and in the UK. It has been designed to support and challenge all pupils, and is built on the belief that everyone can learn maths successfully. It follows White Rose Maths and further details about each unit can be found on their website. Our calculation policies can be found at the bottom of this page.
To supplement our Power Maths lessons, we also have mathematical fluency lessons in KS1, and mathematical fluency and arithmetic lessons in KS2. Continuous provision is used in the EYFS. Maths is widely promoted across the school; every classroom has a Maths working wall that children can utilise to support learning.
Sheringdale’s aim is for all children to be able to access the learning and for children to move through the curriculum at broadly the same pace. Children are encouraged to use concrete manipulatives, enabling them to understand what they are doing rather than learning abstract ideas. This hands-on approach provides learning strategies for all children including those with SEND. We ensure that sufficient challenge is provided within lessons through rich and sophisticated problem-solving and reasoning tasks, rather than acceleration through new content.