At Parkhead Community Primary School, we want all children to master mathematics. Children learn through a highly visual approach to teaching and use real resources to make sense of maths. Mathematics is a highly creative subject and children are asked to reason and explain their thinking in lessons. Children work hard to meet ambitious targets and to truly master the fundamentals of mathematical concepts.

Our maths curriculum is designed on 5 big ideas of teaching for mastery. Our curriculum is designed to allow small steps of learning within lessons, across lessons and across mathematical concepts. Representations play a vital role in exposing mathematical structures so children can make sense of concepts. Mathematical vocabulary is rigorously and explicitly taught so children have the tools and confidence to reason and explain their think clearly and concisely. All children are encouraged to look for patterns, links and connections between mathematical concepts. We aim for children to learn the essentials of mathematics well.

(NCETM, 2017)

Intent:

Our curriculum intends to:

• Develop deep conceptual knowledge and understanding of mathematics.
• Foster an enthusiasm and enjoyment of mathematics.
• Make links and connections in mathematics.
• Reason clearly and accurately, using specific and technical mathematical vocabulary.
• Calculate clearly and accurately.
• Be fluent in number facts and multiplication times tables.

Implementation:

The maths curriculum is based on the expectations of the primary national curriculum. Each year group cover particular content appropriate for their age. The curriculum is designed in a spiral so that it builds on previous years concepts and allows children to deepen their understanding.

Lessons are meticulously and intelligently designed to expose children to big mathematical ideas. Teachers craft lessons which allow children to make small steps of progress and build towards mastering a concept. Vocabulary is explicitly and rigorously taught using sentence stems to develop children’s’ reasoning and explanations. Teacher’s questions are structured in ways which require critical and creative thinking to in order to solve problems.

Many lessons involve physical materials for children to use and manipulate. This allows children to make sense of the structures of mathematics whilst working in groups. This links with our learning power of ‘be co-operative’.

At the start of each lesson, children complete ‘flashback’ calculation in order to master basic calculations which they will use for the remainder of their education, and indeed the remainder of their life. Each day in Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1, all children use Rekenreks (a small abacus like piece of equipment) to practice number facts, giving them the best start to mathematical education.

We work very closely with the Great North Maths Hub and routinely invite schools from across our region to learn from our expectational lessons. We host teacher research groups (TRGs) which allow a ‘lesson study’ approach to continuously develop all staff.

Impact

The impact of our aims and implementation of our aims result in an effective approach to teaching and learning. Children explore, critique, prove, disprove and play with maths in real and meaningful contexts. Making connections across the curriculum and equipping children with essential skills to reason and solve problems. End of unit and end of term assessments are used and teachers use them, alongside their professional judgements, to support children in the next steps of their learning. Our children think like mathematicians, behave like mathematicians and communicate like mathematicians.