Intent

At Leesland C of E Federation, we are committed to the Mastery Maths philosophy that is for all children to develop a secure understanding of mathematical concepts and processes, combined with genuine fluency when completing calculations. We aim for all our children to leave us having gained a joy of discovery within maths together with the skills to enable them to do this with ever increasing fluency, accuracy and ability to work systematically. As a result, our children will be able to clearly explain their reasoning, identify and correct their own errors. 

Implementation

At Leesland, we use the Concrete Pictorial Abstract (CPA) approach to teaching maths and are on the journey to embed the Teaching for Mastery principles into our daily maths lessons. Concrete manipulatives including dienes, numicon, counters, number lines and multilink are available within classrooms for all children to use to support their understanding with new concepts. The use of pictorial representations to connect the learning from the concrete to the abstract is modelled within lessons and children are encouraged to use these to aid the development in their understanding of the mathematical concepts.  Through the use of working walls within the learning environment, children are able to retrieve key information and refer to new learning to help them embed and apply this knowledge in fluency, reasoning and problem solving. 

Our Maths curriculum is mapped to include coverage of the National Curriculum for the current year, whilst also being flexible to meet the current needs of each cohort to plug gaps in their knowledge from the curriculum of the previous year group. Each year group has created a long term plan to ensure coverage of the National Curriculum. Within each domain that is taught, teachers break down the learning journey to ensure cohesion and small steps are taught which build upon prior knowledge.  Within a learning journey, children are provided with opportunities to retrieve prior knowledge, enhance their fluency, apply their knowledge through reasoning activities and make connections within their learning through problem solving tasks. In order to advance individual children’s maths skills in school and at home, we utilise online resources. In EYFS and KS1, the children are able to access Mathseeds which supports them in learning and becoming fluent in the basic number facts that provide them with a solid base to build upon as they progress through the school.  In KS2, the children are able to access Times Tables Rock Stars for multiplication practise, application and consolidation.

Teachers have Continual Professional Development (CPD) to increase their knowledge and understanding of the Teaching for Mastery principles, this enables them to embed the Mastery approach within their lessons.  Learning journeys are clear and have small steps to ensure progression, whilst the use of both White Rose resources and the NCETM spines enables teachers and support staff to expand their own subject knowledge, whilst enhance their planning. 

Through our teaching we continuously monitor pupils’ progress against expected attainment for their age, making formative assessment notes where appropriate and use these to inform our teaching.  Summative assessments are completed at the end of each term; these are used as the basis of termly Pupil Progress Meeting discussions and are updated on our assessment tracking tool within Arbour.  The main purpose of all assessment is to always ensure that we are providing excellent provision for every child. Where necessary, small maths group provision is provided for those children with SEND both within the classroom and in additional intervention groups. 

Impact

This is evident in: 

• Well planned sequences of learning with small steps progression which supports children to develop and refine their maths skills. 

• Pitch of tasks are age/stage appropriate. 

• Stem sentences being used within lessons to support and increase children’s understanding. 

• Children are able to use stem sentences to support their reasoning explanations, making links and apply their prior knowledge. 

• Children are using mathematical language in their articulation of reasoning answers and when discussing maths.

• The modelling of the Concrete Pictorial Abstract approach within lessons to introduce and build upon mathematical concepts. 

• Children showing confidence when talking about maths and being able to articulate their understanding using mathematical language. 

• Staff have an understanding of the Teaching for Mastery approach and continue to develop this knowledge through ongoing CPD.

• Children are able to use the learning environment (working wall) to support and guide their learning.

What our pupils say about Maths 

'The teachers are always helpful if you are stuck.'

'Daily practice gets us ready for maths.'

'We work hard on our times table.  I love TTRock stars.'

'Maths will help us if we have our own business.  We will need good maths.'

We can use resources in maths.'