Maths

Maths Intent

At Rivelin, we encourage ALL pupils to become mathematicians. We work hard to cultivate an environment rich in mathematical understanding. This is supported by the use of rich Maths vocabulary through oracy sentence stems and daily opportunities for talk.

Mathematics is a skill that we use on a daily basis and is an essential part of everyday life. At Rivelin Primary School, we provide a rich, high-quality, challenging and progressive mastery-based Mathematics curriculum, enabling all students to use reasoning and problem solving to encourage fluent, conceptual understanding in all areas. Using this approach, we endeavor that children develop an enjoyment and enthusiasm for Maths that will stay with them throughout their lives and empower them in the future.

We develop:

• Declarative knowledge by teaching mathematical facts, concepts and rules,
• The procedural knowledge by ensuring pupils know how to perform the steps in a process,
• The conditional knowledge by providing children with the ability to know when to use the most efficient procedure, skill or strategy.

To provide opportunities for pupils to hone the above skills, we utilise a variety of manipulatives, group work and interactive tools/games for pupils to use at both home and school.

As we follow the White Rose Curriculum, the National Curriculum end-of-year objectives are broken down into small, manageable steps for all pupils to access. These are then divided into units, clearly showing progression in line with age-related expectations. It allows children to explore skills and knowledge in-depth, helping them gain a secure understanding of each content area. Key knowledge and skills are revisited, allowing children to embed learning through repetition. We use a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach, which provides a clear structure to help develop understanding.

Our curriculum is ambitious; we strive for all pupils to be appropriately challenged. The challenge provided in class is based on the needs of each individual pupil.

Oracy-based Maths lessons with purposeful sentence stems prove to be an invaluable learning tool for all pupils. These opportunities for talk along with a newly introduced calculation policy will continue to help bolster children’s use of maths-specific vocabulary and provide them with confidence to solve increasingly challenging questions.

We encourage resilient, ‘mistake-friendly’ classrooms, where children see mistakes as learning tools. This philosophy aligns with our Core Values and it sets all of our pupils up for success as mathematicians.

Maths Implementation

Here at Rivelin, we continuously evaluate and review our curriculums/schemes to ensure that they meet the needs of our pupils. As a result of this process, we have recently made changes to the Nursery and Reception Maths Curriculums.

Last year, we worked alongside the Nursery team to adopt the Master the Curriculum scheme of learning. This scheme’s resources are aligned with the White Rose Maths framework and the National Curriculum. This sets our pupils up for Mathematical success in Year 1 and also utilises engaging nursery rhymes and books to enhance the Maths provision, whilst also promoting a love of Maths from an early age.

In Spring 2024, our Reception team switched over from the White Rose scheme of learning to using the NCETM’s Mastering Number programme. This decision was made as the adoption of Mastering Number in Years 1 and 2 have significantly improved pupils’ number sense in Key Stage 1. We also wanted to promote a deeper understanding of key concepts, something that Mastering Number does quite well. However, as Mastering Number do not cover all required topics, White Rose is still used for shape, space and measure.

In order to improve our mastery approach and further improve the quality and consistency of our maths teaching, we use the White Rose scheme of learning from Y1-Y6. Adopted during COVID, this curriculum has ensured that the curriculum taught is broad and balanced. The sequencing, small steps and progression within this curriculum is based on the work of ‘leading researchers across the world.’ This has also positively resulted in the upskilling of our staff through the introduction of various strategies to teach certain concepts. Their curriculum (currently version 3) is appropriately updated to reflect advances within the field of mathematics, alongside feedback from educators across the UK.

It is essential that children have a deep understanding of the most important elements that underpin the mathematics curriculum so that there is consistency and continuity as children move up throughout the school. To improve consistency of Maths teaching across classes, cohorts and key stages, we adopted the use of White Rose workbooks from the start of this academic year. This change also came about as a result of staff feedback, providing staff with more time to look at lesson design as opposed to copying and chopping resources. This change has already been positively received. In some instances, a child may not be able to access content for their year group. Therefore, the class teacher works closely alongside the SENDCO/SLT to determine if workbooks or other resources are most appropriate.

We recognise the value of making a coherent journey through the National Curriculum and each year group follow a medium-term plan where small, cumulative steps build a sold foundation of deep mathematical understanding. Formative assessment/assessment for learning is threaded throughout both each lesson and unit of work; and appropriate revisions to planning are made by the class teacher to ensure all lessons are tailored to best meet the needs of their children.

In order to meet our aims and the requirements set out in the EYFS Framework and the Primary National Curriculum, we have implemented the following:

• Promote a positive attitude towards Maths through the use of engaging and appropriately challenging tasks
• Teachers reinforce an expectation that ALL children are capable of achieving high standards in Mathematics. These high expectations tie in with our Core Values.

• The use of adaptive teaching, such as making effective use of teaching assistants and balancing input of new content to prevent cognitive overload

• Daily use of oracy tasks (anchor tasks, sentence stems) and other group-based activities to promote pupil discussions and further embed newly introduced maths concepts
• To develop secure and deep conceptual understanding, staff plan for the use of concrete resources, varied representations and structures (outlined and guided through White Rose)
• The vast majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace. If children master the content taught, they are given tasks/questions to help deepen their understanding
• Regular and ongoing formative assessment informs teaching, as well as timely pre-teach/interventions, to support and enable the success of all learners
• Teachers continuously reflect on their teaching/lesson and planning is adjusted accordingly. We use termly NTS assessments from Year 1 to Year 5 (Year 2 and Year 6 use previous SATs papers).
• Children’s attainment and progress is discussed by teachers and SLT and if progress is not made, support is immediate and steps provided
• Children’s attainment and progress is discussed with parents/carers during Parents Evenings
• Provision will be made for children who are not making the expected level of progress through the use of My Plans, interventions and pre-teach
• Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts
• Daily basic skills sessions recap and rehearse key skills to aid retention and support fluency:
• Every child in Years 1 through to Year 6 access Fluent in Five morning work before the morning register is taken (8:40-8:55). Pupils needing more challenge access the Rapid Reasoning extension questions
• Weekly arithmetic tests in Year 6
• Reception’s adoption of the Mastering Number programme in Spring
• Y1 and Y2 have Mastering Number embedded
• Y4 and Y5 have recently joined the Mastering Number programme
• KS2 children can access Times Tables Rock Stars both at home and school to improve fluency of times tables knowledge
• Times Table badges awarded during Friday Celebration Assemblies
• Maths tutoring in Years 4 and 6 to consolidate maths knowledge and fill gaps to improve confidence in Maths
• The use of Testbase to help children access different types of maths questions that mirror SATs-style questions
• The use of appropriate continuous provision within EYFS to match content taught in daily Maths lessons

Maths Impact

• Children are happy, confident and resilient learners who talk enthusiastically about their learning and feel empowered to take on new challenges in Maths
• Pupils are engaged throughout lessons and excited to participate in opportunities for oracy (anchor tasks and group activities)
• The impact of ‘mastery’ and the emphasis on accurate use of mathematical language is evident during class/pupil discussions 
• Children’s fluency in number is evident in our proven track record of high success in arithmetic 
• More consistent teaching practices that are well-known to be more effective for pupil progress long term, evident across school
• Cross-school moderation highlights the high level of challenge for all ability groups, evident throughout topics through reasoning and problem-solving activities  
• Teacher assessment of the depth of learning is also increasingly accurate

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