Mathematics At Hillcrest

At Hillcrest, our aim is to ensure that all children have solid foundations in mathematics that can be further built upon as children move in to KS2. Through mathematics, we actively aim to provide a relevant, challenging and enjoyable mathematics curriculum for all children. Children develop the use of mathematical language through speaking and listening, including reasoning and explanations. Mathematics will enable all children to understand the value of mathematics in everyday situations.

Intent

At Hillcrest it is our intent to provide children with a high-quality, broad and challenging Mathematics curriculum. The exciting learning journey will allow for all children to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, developing their conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. Children will be able to reason mathematically by justifying, making links to known facts, or providing proof using mathematical language. Understanding of concepts will be challenged through solving problems by applying their mathematic knowledge. Links within other subjects will be highlighted and skills and mathematical knowledge will be applied. We will equip children with the foundations of mathematics that are essential to everyday life.

Implementation

In the Foundation Stage, our young mathematicians will be provided with many exciting opportunities, through planned purposeful play and a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activities, to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measure. White Rose resources are using to support teaching and learning. 

Throughout Key Stage 1, we follow the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning and supplement this with resources from NCETM Mastery Documents and Primary Stars Education to teach a broad and challenging curriculum. Our Mathematics curriculum will provide many opportunities for children to develop confidence and fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value. The use of practical equipment, such as concrete objects and measuring tools, will support the children to gain a deeper conceptual understanding before being challenged through tasks and questions to explain their reasoning and solve a range of problems. The children are equipped with the skills to recognise shapes and their properties and measures to describe and compare different quantities such as length, mass, capacity/volume, time and money.    

At Hillcrest, we recognise that in order for pupils to progress to deeper and more complex problems, children need to be confident and fluent across each yearly objective. To ensure our pupils acquire a deeper understanding in their mathematical learning journey, we supplement our fluency resources by using the White Rose Maths Hub and Abacus schemes of learning to support the teaching of mathematics. 

Within the Maths hub schemes of learning, each National Curriculum objective is broken down into fluency, reasoning and problem solving; our teachers use the learning challenges to teach for mastery - an approach to extend and deepen the understanding of pupils within each year group. Our teaching staff use this document in conjunction with a range of high quality resources such as NRich, Primary Stars and NCETM to support, stretch and challenge all learners within the classroom. 

Concrete, pictorial, abstract

Objects, pictures, words, numbers and symbols are everywhere. The mastery approach incorporates all of these to help children explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enrich their learning experience and deepen understanding. Together, these elements help cement knowledge so pupils truly understand what they’ve learnt.

All pupils, when introduced to a key new concept, should have the opportunity to build competency in this topic by taking this approach. Pupils are encouraged to physically represent mathematical concepts. Objects and pictures are used to demonstrate and visualise abstract ideas, alongside numbers and symbols.

Concrete – children have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing.

Pictorial – children then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can then be used to reason and solve problems.

Abstract – With the foundations firmly laid, children can move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence

Impact

A variety of methods are used to find out what the children know and understand. Lesson activities are scaffolded to suit the different abilities and learning styles. Mathematics lessons allow for collaborative learning and thus encourage children to talk in pairs, small groups or through class discussion, to share learning. For those children who grasp concepts rapidly, they will be challenged through a range of problems, whilst those not sufficiently fluent will be provided with opportunities to consolidate their understanding through additional practice and first response intervention. Children’s understanding of taught concepts will be assessed using end of block assessment tasks which provide opportunities for children to demonstrate their understanding fully. 

 Children in the Foundation Stage will be assessed against Development Matters. Children in Year 2 will be assessed against the End of Year 2 Teacher Assessment Framework.

Mathematics monitoring includes work scrutinies, lesson observations and/or learning walks, pupil voice interviews/questionnaires in order to ascertain correct curriculum coverage, the quality of teaching and learning as well as the children’s attitudes to and retention of maths learning. This information is then used to inform further curriculum developments and provision is adapted accordingly.