Vine Tree Primary School

Maths

Our vision:

At Vine Tree, our aim is to provide a maths curriculum which enables children to:

• Experience enjoyment in the teaching and learning of mathematics;
• Experience maths which is relevant and purposeful to ‘real life’;
• Engage with meaningful, well-resourced tasks;
• Feel challenged and unafraid to make mistakes;
• Articulate their thought process when solving problems;

To feel confident in their own mathematical ability.

Intent

At Vine Tree Primary School we take a Mastery approach to our Mathematics teaching.  This means spending longer teaching particular area/ topics and allowing pupils to go into depth in these areas before moving on to a new area of the curriculum.

We have high expectations that all children will achieve a Mastery level of understanding by being given the opportunity to explore, become fluent and reason and problem solve.  Questions and activities will be carefully planned to meet the needs of individuals and their prior knowledge. A range of manipulatives will be available in all maths lessons to support children to meet this mastery level.

Implementation

In EYFS Pupils are given daily exposure to mathematics, through direct teaching, real life experiences, play and independent activities. In KS1 and KS2 teaching follows the NCETM Ready to Progress criteria and is planned with the support of Mathematics Consultants First 4 Maths.  Planning sequences ensure a consistent approach to Maths teaching throughout the school, allowing for a focus on the sequence of learning, opportunity for open ended investigational type questions and continued development of pedagogy.

Every child is given time to think deeply about maths and we strive to develop a positive attitude which builds pupil confidence and resilience.

In all classes there are children of differing mathematical ability. Work is differentiated through depth, rather than acceleration. Children have unique starting points based upon their prior knowledge and understanding and work through the content at varying depth, with the expectation that all pupils will eventually reach a mastery level of understanding. We achieve this through a range of strategies – in some lessons through differentiated group work and in other lessons by organising the children to work in pairs on open-ended problems or games. We use teaching assistants to support targeted groups and to provide in situ feedback to ensure that work is matched to the needs of individuals.

Reasoning and Problem-Solving tasks are integral to the Maths curriculum and the activities that children are given to develop their mathematical thinking.  Our calculation policy ensures that there is a consistent approach to the methods and vocabulary of calculations throughout the school.  Resources are readily available to support the development of conceptual understanding in all year groups.

The Mastery approach at Vine Tree ensures that there is a greater expectation of all children with little chance for passive learning as there is a greater emphasis on talking maths, collaborating, exploring and investigating.  Children are constantly challenged in their learning.

Programme of Study

Progression maps

Long Term Plans

We have been working with the Maths consultancy company First4Maths to plan our mathematics coverage for this year.  Please see the working documents below.  These are supported by the NCETM Ready to Progress documentation.

Action Plans

Please see below the most recent Action Plans for Maths at Vine Tree, including the evaluated action plan for 21-22.

Maths Policies