Moston Lane Community Primary School
Welcome to
Moston Lane Community Primary School
Maths
Hi, I am Miss Buckley and I am the Maths Coordinator at Moston Lane Community Primary School. My favourite subject is Maths and I love to see the resilience of our children when tackling tricky problems! I really enjoy teaching Maths and helping our children to develop the key number skills to be successful in life.
Intent
The National Curriculum for Maths aims to ensure that children:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of maths
- Are able to reason mathematically
- Can solve problems by applying their mathematics
At Moston Lane Community Primary School these skills are embedded within the Maths curriculum and are developed over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. We want our children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically.
Implementation
At Moston Lane we follow the ‘Big Maths’ scheme of work to teach 20 minutes of mental maths before each session. This is based on core maths and split into 4 sections:
Counting – the children practise their counting skills
Learn Its – the children practise their times tables and number bonds
It’s Nothing New – the children re-cap prior learning
Calculations – the children practise one of the four operations
The Big Maths scheme provides children with opportunities to practise their counting, times tables and calculation skills every day. This daily ptactise helps the children to become fluent and confident with number and builds strong foundations.
The children then have a full maths session based on a specific area of the new curriculum with a high focus on fluency, problem solving and reasoning. To ensure consistency and progression, the school follows the White Rose Scheme which is supplemented by Power Maths resources. This approach is supported by the school’s ongoing engagement with the DFE funded Maths Hub Mastery programme. This programme helps to ensure that staff at all levels understand the pedagogy of the approach.
Mathematical topics are taught in blocks to enable children to master their maths and deepen their understanding. To learn mathematics effectively you need to learn some concepts before others e.g. place value before addition and subtraction. Therefore, our curriculum emphasises number skills first, carefully ordered, throughout our curriculum. For some other topics, the order isn’t as crucial, e.g. shape and statistics need to come after number but don’t depend on each other. Topics are mixed so pupils have a wide variety of mathematical experiences in each term and year.
New concepts are shared within real-life contexts and teachers use careful questioning to draw out children’s discussion and their reasoning. The class teacher then leads children through strategies for solving the problem using the CPA approach.
Concrete – Children have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing.
Pictorial – Children then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can be used to reason and solve problems.
Abstract – With the foundations firmly laid, children can more to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.
Pupils start by manipulating objects, then use a range of pictorial representations and progress towards the abstract. Partner and independent work provide the means for all children to develop their fluency further, progressing to more complex related problems.
Impact
The school has a supportive ethos and our approach supports the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievements of others. The Big Maths and White Rose Schemes ensure that all children experience challenge and success in Mathematics by developing a growth mindset. Regular and on-going assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child. This means that we are able to maintain high standards, with achievement at the end of KS2 above the national average.
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Reception Power Maths Calculation Policy
KS1 Power Maths Calculation Policy
Below is the ‘Curriculum Map’ and 'Progression of Skill & Knowledge, which outlines the activities and skills that will be taught throughout the year:
Progression of Skills & Knowledge
Below you can find the 'Age Related Expectations' for each year group. The documents outline what a child should be able to do by the end of their time in each class. Children will be assessed against these expectations to see what they have achieved, and what they need to work on next.
Please follow the links to find out more about the expectations for your child:
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Knowledge Organisers
Please find 'Knowledge Organisers' for your child's year group below. They include all the key vocabulary that the children will need and use during their Maths lessons throughout the year.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 6 |
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Addition and Subtraction to 10 |
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Parent Guides
We understand that many parents feel like maths has changed and that it’s sometimes difficult to keep up to date with modern teaching methods. Well don’t worry, we’re here to help. Look below and watch the 'Maths with Michael' videos created by White Rose Maths. You can also read the short 'how to' parent guides for information on how to help your child.
'How to...' Guides
Maths Club 2022
Year 3 have been attending Maths Club throughout Summer term! They have enjoyed using counters and even drawing on the tables to represent and solve the different addition and subtraction problems.
Maths Day 2022
To celebrate Math’s Day the whole school completed a range of shape activities linked to art. In EYFS the children created shape monsters and played a range of shape games. In KS1, the children had lots of fun creating face shape art and created shape mobiles inspired by the art of Alexander Calder. Year 3 researched Wassily Kandinsky and painted concentric circles using bold colours. Year 4 spent the day creating tangrams and drawing their own tessellations and solved a range of different problems. In upper KS2, the children created shape self-portraits, landscape art using shapes and wrote their own maths poems. Look below and see some of the fantastic work!
Mastering Number
This project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Attention will be given to key knowledge and understanding needed in Reception classes, and progression through KS1 to support success in the future.
Power Maths
In Reception and KS1 we have recently started to follow the Power Maths scheme of learning. The whole class work together and discover a problem using a real-life scenario. Then they work together with their partner to practise the skill before completing their independent work in the practise book. The children are encouraged to use concrete resources and pictorial representations when solving any problems. There is also an opportunity for the children to reflect on their learning and complete appropriate challenges at the end of every lesson.
White Rose
In KS2 we follow the White Rose scheme of learning which is built up of carefully planned steps. The scheme builds our KS1 curriculum and uses the same models and representations. The children complete a range of fluency, problem solving and reasoning questions through our Bronze, Silver and Gold approach. This means that children are practising and implementing their maths skills in a variety of different contexts. Children are encouraged to use concrete resources and pictorial representations to aid them in lessons.
NumBots
We are delighted to inform you about a new exciting game we’re using to support your child’s maths. The creators of Times Tables Rock Stars have produced a platform for boosting addition and subtraction skills, called NumBots.
Big Difference
NumBots is an online game and playing little and often will significantly improve your child’s recall and understanding of number bonds and addition and subtraction facts. These are critical foundations in maths so we are excited by the impact NumBots will have.
Logging In
Today the children were all shown how the game works and how to login. Their logins have been stuck on the inside cover of their reading record. Please make a note of their username and password if they should lose their reading record. If you would like your child to have a go at home you just need to download the FREE Numbots app from your app store. Alternatively, if you’re playing on a PC or laptop visit https://play.numbots.com/
Times Tables Rock Stars
What is Times Table Rock Stars?
Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practise. Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so.
What are its aims?
The programme has one aim - to boost times table recall speeds.
What are the benefits of Times Table Rock Stars?
Incorrect answers are always immediately corrected in front of the pupil so that they start to associate the correct answer to every question.
The clever code behind the scenes works out which times tables facts each pupil is consistently taking longer to answer and then it gradually starts to present these facts more frequently until pupils have mastered them.
It will also ask related division questions 20% of the time in order to reinforce division facts.
Click the picture below and login! Rock on!
Learning Links
At Moston Lane we use a variety of websites to secure children’s understanding of different aspects of Maths. Times Table Rockstars is a fun way for the children to practise their times tables, where they can challenge themselves to beat their own times, play against other children in their class as well as their school and they can even compare themselves against other schools in the local area! We also use MyMaths to set weekly homework. In addition to the homework, children can also complete lessons for any areas they are struggling with or want more practice of. All children have a username and a password for both MyMaths and Times Table Rockstars- if they are not sure of them then please do not hesitate to ask their class teacher.
