Maths

Intent

At Henleaze Infant School the intention for our Mathematics curriculum is that all children enjoy and feel enthused about mathematics, which will foster future awareness and fascination. The children will view themselves as confident, able mathematicians with fluency in mathematical knowledge, concepts and skills. Through developing a child’s ability to calculate, reason and problem solve, Mathematics teaches us how to make sense of the world around us. Therefore, we aim to ensure that our pupils develop the ability to use and apply mathematics across the curriculum and in real-life scenarios, as well as developing the skill of mentally checking calculations for accuracy and reasonableness. By the time children leave Henleaze Infant School they will have developed the ability to solve problems by applying their skills to a variety of routine and non-routine problems and to reason by thinking logically and working systematically and accurately. Our pupils learn to reason mathematically and explain relationships using specific, related mathematical language. We truly believe and make it explicit that every child is a mathematician, and this is mirrored in our consistent and engaging whole school approach. Our pupils persevere when working independently as well as cooperating with others to understand mathematics through a process of enquiry and experimentation. All of our staff work with the children to advance pupil outcomes in mathematics through quality first teaching, intervention and support groups.

Implementation

Our curriculum incorporates the coverage of the statutory outcomes outlined in the Early Years Foundation Stage and KS1 Mathematics Programme of Study – National Curriculum 2014. Our planning is based on the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning to guarantee consistency, coherence and progression throughout the EYFS and KS1. In addition staff refer to other materials to support short-term planning. These are used across EYFS and KS1 allowing children to be exposed to a variety of different types of learning and problems to solve. Teachers implement our schools’ agreed Calculation Policy of Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract (CPA). To learn mathematics effectively, some things have to be learned before others and this order of small step learning is factored into our planning (e.g. place value needs to be understood before working with addition). At Henleaze Infant School, we have an emphasis on number skills first, carefully ordered, throughout the curriculum. We support our children to become visualisers, describers and experimenters. Our pupils engage and enjoy using concrete resources to experiment and complete practical activities. We help our children to be visualisers through using the CPA approach. This helps pupils understand mathematics and to make connections between different representations. We encourage our pupils to become describers as we place a great emphasis on the mathematical language and questioning so pupils can discuss the mathematics they are doing. Sentence stems are regularly used during whole class discussions to support our younger children to learn mathematical language and develop their ability to reason. We support our children to become experimenters as we want pupils to love and learn more about mathematics.
Children take part in explicit daily mathematics lessons with a specific focus on either Number or Measure, Geometry or Statistics. All areas of the mathematics curriculum are continually revisited through planned short or longer in-depth teaching sequences to enable children to develop a depth of understanding. At Henleaze Infant School, we regularly give our children opportunities to use and apply their mathematical learning in everyday situations, aiming to embed mathematical skills across the curriculum. Through the use of ELLI characters, our pupils persevere when working independently and cooperatively with others to understand mathematics through a process of inquiry and experiment during open tasks, as well as closed. At Henleaze Infant School, the children are given opportunities to work with computers as a mathematical tool. For example, our children use Number Gym in school and at home to develop fluency while using technology and having fun. Click here to view the whole school Calculation Policy.

Please click here to see more about our Maths intent and implementation.

Whole school curriculum map

Whole School Progression Map

Please click on the image below to view the Progression across the school for maths.

Supporting Maths learning at home

Calculation policy

One of the most common barriers that parents face when helping children with their mathematics is that the written methods taught in school today may not be familiar. Our focus is very much on helping children to understand the mathematics, to visualise what is happening to the numbers they are working with and to comprehend how the manipulation of numbers helps them to solve real world problems. Whilst there can be a value in learning a method by rote, misunderstandings occur when children do not have a secure grasp of number concepts. Therefore, from an early stage, we use lots of objects (known as concrete resources) and pictorial representations. Even when children are really confident with mathematics, it still helps for them to explain what they are doing by using concrete resources or drawing pictorial representations.

In order to ensure that the progression is logical and helpful right from the start, we have written our Calculation Policy in partnership with Henleaze Junior School. The policy guarantees that pupils build upon their Mathematics knowledge from Reception to Year 6.

Our Calculation Policy shows examples of the methods we teach. Parents may find it useful to refer to these when helping children at home.

White Rose Maths

Our in school planning is based on the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning to guarantee consistency, coherence and progression throughout the EYFS and KS1. White Rose Maths have created some useful videos and ‘Parent Guide’ booklets. Click here to view them.

White Rose Maths 1-minute app

White Rose have launched a fantastic app called 1-Minute Maths.  It has been designed by Maths experts to help children learn number confidence and fluency using a method they can enjoy. With easy-to-follow tasks delivered in engaging, bite-sized chunks, it is simple for children to use independently at home. The app is totally free and  it’s available for use on AppleAndroid and Kindle devices.

The app has been designed for infant aged children. There are games for Reception, Year 1 and 2.

Reception children: We suggest Reception children begin with tasks about subitising. It’s one of the most critical number skills a young child develops, recognising number groups without counting, making it a perfect place for Reception children to start.

Year 1 children: If your child has mastered subitising, we recommend moving onto tasks focused on adding or subtracting number bonds to 10.

Year 2 children: We suggest trying tasks focused on adding or subtracting number bonds to 20. We recommend you check your child’s ability with number bonds to 10 before starting these tasks to 2.

Early Years Foundation Stage (Reception)

Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and 2)

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