St John Fisher RC Primary School
Maths Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement
Intent
At St. John Fisher RC Primary School, we aim to create confident, curious and risk-taking mathematicians who have a love of learning and can apply their mathematical understanding to a range of different concepts. We offer a high-quality mathematics education which provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically and solving challenging problems by applying their fluency skills. We want to develop independent learners with inquisitive minds who have secure mathematical foundations. Our Mathematics curriculum promotes the St John Fisher’s mission, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men” and is supported by our four Core Values which are, Faith, Love, Passion and Courage. Our vision as a school is to encourage the children to strive for excellence in all that they do and to encourage them to flourish and have a love of learning for the subject through teaching high quality maths lessons.
We focus on shaping the whole person and allow Mathematics lessons to cater for all talents, skills and learning types as children blossom in different areas. Learning spaces within school are created to inspire the children through the use of resources, children’s work and strategies to assist them. Throughout the school, learning walls are based on the CPA approach which promotes the Mastery of Mathematics by using a range of concrete, pictorial and abstract examples. Under these headings are examples of teacher and children’s work to show how they have done it in the lesson. The learning walls are intended to help move the children’s learning on. Each maths learning area has table baskets to store resources at an age appropriate level. However, to support progression, in EYFS and Year 1, we have labelled baskets of resources to support the use of continuous provision.
Implementation
Our mastery approach to the curriculum is designed to develop children's knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts from the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) through to the end of Year 6. At St John Fisher, we follow the national curriculum and use White Rose Maths Schemes of Work as a guide to support teachers with their planning and assessment. We use our calculation policy within school to ensure a consistent approach to teaching the four operations.
Children are encouraged to make mistakes in a safe and supportive environment. They are supported to discuss these misconceptions with their peers and staff alike. Here at St John Fisher, we place oracy at the heart of our learning through shared work and class discussions. Use of appropriate vocabulary is modelled throughout lessons by both staff and children, allowing everyone to ‘talk like a mathematician’. Once a child can articulate their understanding of a concept, can they truly begin to make connections within their learning.
For Key Stage One and Key Stage Two, at the start of each new topic, children complete a pre-assessment task; this enables the teachers to ascertain what pupils already know and thus plan accordingly ensuring that children are both supported and challenged so that every child makes progress. Children are taught through clear modelling and through our mastery approach, which incorporates using objects, pictures, words and numbers. We help children to explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enriching their learning experience and deepen their understanding at all levels. Those children who have shown their understanding at a deep level within the unit, will have opportunities to apply these skills in greater depth through further challenge activities and are accelerated to problem solving and reasoning activities. In each lesson, mathematical resources are readily available to assist the securing of a conceptual understanding of the different skills appropriate for each year group. A love of maths is encouraged throughout school via links with others subjects, applying an ever-growing range of skills with growing independence.
To supplement learning, children have access to a number of learning platforms, including Times Tables Rockstars and My Maths, to encourage continued learning at home.
For children with additional needs, individual learning activities are provided to ensure their progress, as well as further scaffolding and relevant support as necessary. We also use Dynamo Maths at St John Fisher, which is a computer-based intervention, to target specific groups of children from Year 1 to Year 6.
Impact
The impact of our mathematics curriculum is that children show confidence in believing that they will achieve and they recognise the relevance of what they are learning in relation to real world concepts. We have fostered an environment where Maths is exciting and it is OK to be ‘wrong’ because the journey to finding an answer is the most important.
Mathematics is continuously monitored, reviewed and evaluated to ensure that we are delivering high quality lessons and that the children are accessing the curriculum and their needs are being met. These impacts are measured through triangulation, learning walks, pupil voice, book scrutinies, lesson observations, teacher voice and questionnaires. This regular monitoring allows the school to make necessary steps to improve and progress to be the best it can be. Insight Tracking is also used to record assessments and track progress throughout each year group and across the whole school, including for different groups of pupils. This helps us to evaluate data and progression effectively and use this knowledge to continue to improve and adapt.
Our maths books are packed with a range of activities showing evidence of fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Our feedback and interventions are supporting children to strive to be the best mathematicians they can be, ensuring a growing number of children are on track, and a larger number of children are displaying that they are capable of working at a Greater Depth level of understanding. Children show a high level of pride in the presentation of the work and can explain how they achieved an answer. Children ‘have a go’ and choose the equipment they need to help them to learn along with the strategies they think are best suited to each problem. Children are developing skills in being articulate and are able to verbally, pictorially and in written form reason well. They show flexibility and fluidity to move between different contexts and representations of maths and are given the opportunity to develop the ability to recognise relationships and make connections in maths lessons Mathematical concepts or skills are mastered when a child can show it in multiple ways, using the mathematical language to explain their ideas, and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations.
Pupil’s progress is measured on a termly basis by the NFER tests and the improvement which children make on these. More frequently, the impact of learning is monitored by questioning, focus groups, daily feedback and formative and summative termly assessment, mainly the White Rose end of unit assessments, as well as the Great Knowledge Share that takes place on a termly basis.
