Mereside Academy

Maths 

Intent

At Mereside Church of England Primary Academy, we aim to provide a high-quality mathematics education that will help our pupils to acquire a deep, long-term, and adaptable understanding of mathematics. We consider mathematics to be a vital subject for building creativity and confidence. It is a subject that can enhance understanding across all curriculum areas and provides essential skills needed throughout life; children will recognise that these skills will allow them to collaborate and communicate effectively with people across the world. At its core, mathematics is a means to explain the world around us, whether it be through using shapes and measures in a building project or in shopping at the local shop; we aim to prepare our children to embrace and enjoy mathematics at all levels. We strive to develop curious mathematicians who are excited about challenge. We aim to develop our pupils’ resilience, enjoyment and reflectiveness in mathematics through exposing them to a wide range of experiences that involve problem solving and reasoning. Our mathematics curriculum will promote discussion, perseverance and questioning with the aim to motivate our children to continue to thrive as passionate mathematicians beyond primary education.  

 At Mereside Church of England Primary Academy, we aim for each child to: 

• Have a positive attitude towards mathematics 
• Have a growth mindset – we want our children to believe that they can learn anything and that their intelligence can grow 
• Recognise that mistakes are important and that they provide opportunities to learn 
• Be able to work systematically, co-operatively and with perseverance 
• Be able to think logically and independently 
• Be able to reason and justify their thinking 
• Be able to think creatively and flexibly when problem solving 
• Experience a sense of achievement regardless of age or attainment 
• Be able to apply previously acquired concepts, skills, knowledge and understanding to new situations and problems - both in and out of school 
• Be able to communicate ideas, experiences and questions, clearly and fluently, using the appropriate mathematical language 
• Be aware of the uses of mathematics beyond the classroom 
• Understand the importance of using efficient strategies in mathematics.  

The following images have been sourced from: youcubed

Implementation

We strive to provide a rich, enjoyable and challenging curriculum that draws upon a wide range of teaching styles and strategies in order to cater for individual learners.  In lessons, we want provide opportunities and experiences that are real and prepare children for everyday life as well as meeting the academic demands of the mathematics curriculum.  Through a clearly structured sequence, children will learn through role play and through challenges that enhance problem solving skills.   

We have been embedding a teaching for mastery approach across the school as we believe that this approach will provide all of our pupils with the best opportunity to persevere to achieve the aims of the national curriculum for mathematics. These aims include: 

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately
• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
• can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and nonroutine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions. 

(DfE, 2013)

Our planning is structured to encompass the NCETM’s ‘five big ideas’: 

• Coherence – our lessons are broken down into small steps which allow the children to make generalisations and apply the concept in a range of contexts.
• Representation and structure – a range of representations are used in lessons to expose the mathematical concept or structure that is being taught.
• Mathematical thinking – our lessons promote deep thinking, discussion and reasoning.
• Fluency – our lessons promote quick and efficient recall of facts and procedures.
• Variation – our planning involves concepts being exposed in a variety of different ways and our planning often focuses on the children paying attention to what is kept the same and what is different. 

(NCETM, 2017) 

Mereside C of E Primary Academy's mathematics is strongly influenced by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM)'s innovative research, training and resources; the school regularly works with the Salop, Herefordshire and Wolverhampton Maths Hub.

Planning

At Mereside Church of England Primary Academy, we use the NCETM's Primary Mastery Professional Development materials, the DfE ready-to-progress materials, the NCETM Curriculum Prioritisation document and NRICH to guide our maths curriculum. We tailor our curriculum to meet the needs of our children; we think carefully about scaffolding our lessons and we ensure that we have exciting extension challenges ready to deepen our children's knowledge and understanding.

Click this link to see the teaching sequence for the NCETM’s Primary Mastery materials that we use to influence our planning sequence: 

Teaching Order for Years 1 - 6

At Mereside, each year group produces their own long term plan based on the children's needs and based on the NCETM's teaching order.

The following PDF shows the DfE ready-to-progress criteria (this criteria identifies the most important conceptual knowledge and understanding that pupils need as they progress from year 1 to year 6): 

Progression Maps 

The following NCETM documents show the progression of maths skills from EYFS to Year 6: 

Maths Competitions

On 27th February 2020, a group of Year 5 children had a fantastic day at Shrewsbury High Prep School. They entered a 'Maths in Motion' competition where there were over ninety Shropshire children competing in the championship. Mereside Team 2 managed to finish in gold position!

Useful Websites to Support Your Child’s Learning

Number Gym

Purple Mash

Hit the Button Maths Game

NRICH Live Problems

Times Tables Rock Stars

If you require a copy of your child's login details for Number Gym, Purple Mash or Times Tables Rock Stars, please contact your child's class teacher.