At All Saints’ Primary School we follow White Rose Maths, a programme of study that is influenced and inspired by researchers and practitioners across the world, which follow a mastery approach to learning maths. A mastery approach means that children acquire a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject, resulting in the children acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that’s been taught to enable them to move on to more advanced material.
Mastery approaches use a carefully sequenced, structured approach to introduce and reinforce mathematical vocabulary. Pupils explain the mathematics in full sentences. They should be able to say not just what the answer is, but explain how they know it’s right.
There is a termly plan for each year group from Year 1 to Year 6 and each term is split into twelve weeks. As part of each overview, a significant amount of time is devoted to developing key number concepts each year. This ensures that students build fluency as number sense will affect their success in other areas of mathematics. Students who are successful with numbers are much more confident mathematicians.
Concrete – Pictorial – Abstract
Within a series of lessons around an area of learning, a concrete, pictorial and abstract (CPA) approach is used and children learn to build their skills through fluency activities, problem solving and reasoning. This enables our children to develop into confident, independent mathematicians.
We believe that all children, when introduced to a new concept, should have the opportunity to build competency by taking this approach.
- children should have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand what they are doing
- alongside this, children should use pictorial representations. These representations can then be used to help reason and solve problems
- both concrete and pictorial representations should support children’s understanding of abstract methods
Teachers use careful questions to draw out children’s discussions and their reasoning. The class teacher then leads children through strategies for solving the problem. Independent work provides the means for all children to develop their fluency further, before progressing to more complex related problems.
The programme enables children to become independent, reflective thinkers, whose skills can assist them not only in Maths but across the curriculum. Children have the opportunity to develop their problem solving, reasoning and fluency skills.
We believe that number underpins almost every area of mathematics. Without firm foundations in number, children are likely to struggle with other aspects of mathematics
At All Saints’, the teaching of mathematics is underpinned by the following aims:
- To develop conceptual understanding by using models, images and concrete resources so that children understand the mathematics that they are learning and are not just taught ‘tricks’.
- To encourage mathematical reasoning by following lines of enquiry, generalising and justifying using mathematical language.
- To apply mathematical understanding to problem solving by breaking down problems into simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions using a range of strategies.
- We hope to develop children’s confidence and enthusiasm and their ability to apply mathematical skills and knowledge to the world around them.
For further information, please see our termly overviews:
| Ben (Reception) | In numbers I enjoy joining two groups. |
| Enea (Year One) | I like doing division. |
| Alfie (Year Two) | I liked to learn that in the times tables it adds the number you are multiplying by. |
| Phoebe (Year Three) | Working with larger numbers are my favourite. |
| Isla (Year Four) | I have loved becoming confident with recalling my times tables. |
| Monty (Year Five) | I like how many different types of maths we learn about it helps you in everyday life |
| Ellie (Year Six) | I loved it when I noticed how percentages are used in real life. |
