Maths provision at Manor
Intent
‘Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment.’ 2014 National Curriculum
At Manor Primary School, we provide children with a mastery rich mathematics curriculum with the intent of developing confident, happy and resilient learners. The ability to reason, problem solve and recall key facts is of high priority throughout our school, with a focus on how to overcome challenges and to ‘overlearn’ key facts a priority throughout the mathematics curriculum. Our curriculum also includes many opportunities for children to revisit previous learning, in order to support them catching up following school closures in 2020 and 2021.
Implementation
At Manor Primary School, mathematics is split into two parts during the school day. Children take part in an hour long maths lesson, which is structured in a way that develops both children’s varied fluency and mastery abilities. Children also receive an additional 15 minutes of ‘Overlearning’. In this session, children practice the rapid recall of key mathematical facts and skills from earlier in their learning journey at Manor Primary School. This may include ‘overlearning’ key facts and skills from a previous academic year in order to plug gaps or build confidence, while later in the year being used as an opportunity to revisit skills and concepts from earlier that academic year. In order to support the planning of a challenging and progressive curriculum, teachers use the White Rose Hub schemes of learning to base their lessons on. (https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/schemes-of-learning/primary-sols/)
White Rose Maths is used at our school as it supports teachers in providing well-structured blocks of learning, which provide opportunities for varied fluency, mastery and to revisit previous learning. This is done through the White Rose Hub small step approach, allowing staff to plan sequences of learning adapted to meet the needs of the children in order to support children to make progress.
A mathematics lesson at Manor Primary School uses a circular structure, designed to provide every child with the opportunity to discuss their learning, develop their fluency skills and tackle mastery activities. Foundation stage follow the structure over a period of 3 days, exploring the same fluency and application of a skills based approach, tackling age appropriate problems.
Mastery/SATs style Question
Each maths lesson begins and ends with mastery or SATs style questioning. There is a balance throughout the curriculum between reasoning style questions, based on White Rose Hub style support materials, along with SATs style questions tailored to match age related expectations of a given year group. The aim of the question or activity it to develop discussion between the children. For example, spotting mistakes or deciding true or false.
Discuss
Children are then given the opportunity to discuss the given problem with a partner. Children are encouraged to think about how they would go about solving the problem, which information within the problem is important, and what skills are needed to be able to solve the problem. This allows children the opportunity to share their misconceptions, discussing their learning with peers and teaching staff.
Teach and Activity
Teachers are now able to address any misconceptions that have arisen from the ‘discuss’ stage. Teachers also model to children the key skills needed to achieve the lesson’s ‘I can’ statement in a variety of ways. Children follow this with an activity designed to build their fluency skills in the given area of mathematics. This will cover a range of learning strategies, including the use of concrete, pictorial and abstract representations by children to show and develop their understanding of a topic.
Misconception Check
Identifying and addressing misconceptions is a key aspect of learning. Teachers use discussion and marking within lesson to identify any misconceptions that have arisen. Teachers then use these misconceptions to stop the class and make a teaching point, in order to support those who have already shown the misconception, and to prevent others from making the same errors. Children are encouraged to support and help each other as part of a team when discussing misconceptions.
Varied fluency
At this stage, children who have displayed a good level of confidence and fluency throughout the lesson are encouraged to show their work in different ways. This could be through the use of pictures, bar modelling, part-whole models and other methods.
Mastery time
To end the lesson, children who are ready to do so are challenged using mastery problems. These could be taken from White Rose Hub resources, or may take the form of a SATs style question. If a child is not yet at the point of mastery, they will continue to develop fluency skills, discussing their learning with the teacher. When ready, they will apply their knowledge and understanding to a mastery challenge.
Impact
Children are continually assessed throughout their learning journey in order to identify gaps in learning, in order to support children to make progress. For each maths lesson, the teacher completes a marking grid assessing the children against the success criteria using the school’s NAPEL assessment framework. Children who have not achieved an ‘Expert’ level (displaying mastery/problem solving skills) are given intervention by either the class teacher or teaching assistant, that is tailored to meet their needs to encourage progress. This may involve intervention designed to plug gaps in basic skills and knowledge to help a child to develop their fluency skills in order to access their age appropriate curriculum. Other children may be given intervention to build upon their existing fluency skills, progressing onto mastery activities.
Children are formally assessed at the end of each term in order to track progress. Pupil Progress Meetings also take place each term between each teacher and the Headteacher in order to discuss the progress of children.
Long Term Planning
The White Rose Hub Primary Progression map is used alongside the long term plan to ensure and measure progression throughout the school.
White Rose Hub progression documents: https://whiterosemaths.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/National-Curriculum-Progression-Primary.pdf
Overlearning & Intervention
In addition to our daily maths lesson, an ‘overlearning’ activity is also time tabled each day in KS2. Overlearning allows children to revisit key concepts throughout the year. Overlearning time may also be used to pre-teach upcoming concepts in order to build confidence. Overlearning follows a weekly structure: Multiplication Monday; Mental Math Tuesday; Reasoning Wednesday; Teacher Choice Thursday and Fraction Friday. During overlearning time, children requiring additional maths intervention in order to plug gaps in learning will work with staff in a small group.
Mastering Number
Alongside our main maths curriculum and provision, Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 are delivering the Mastering Number programme. Using a rekenrek, children will develop and secure good number sense before leaving KS1. This will then underpin their mathematical skills in KS2.
For more information: https://www.ncetm.org.uk/maths-hubs-projects/mastering-number/
Remote Learning Provision
‘In developing their remote education, we expect schools to:
teach a planned and well-sequenced curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built incrementally, with a good level of clarity about what is intended to be taught and practised in each subject so that pupils can progress through the school’s curriculum.’ DfE January 2021 guidance.
In the event that school is forced to move to remote learning provision, or in the case of a child needing to enter a period of isolation, Manor Primary School provides remote learning which mirrors the learning journey taking place in class. White Rose Hub home learning teaching videos are provided on the school website, along with the corresponding activity. Children are also provided access to Times Table Rockstars and Numbots. Evidence of home learning is uploaded to Class Dojo by each child, with the class teacher able to provide support and feedback through comments and messaging.