Maths
Mathematics at Vicarage Park CE Primary School
How we teach Mathematics:
At Vicarage Park we believe that all children can succeed in Mathematics and that mistakes should be valued as part of the learning process. Pupils at Vicarage Park are involved in a wide range of activities which help them to be fluent, confident mathematicians. This includes learning concepts, solving problems, developing their mental skills and reasoning mathematically. Pupils have regular opportunities to practise, embedding these skills in any context and relating what they are learning to the real world. The resource that we use to support our planning and teaching of Maths is The White Rose.
Teachers plan Maths lessons which include the following elements:
- Practise
- Reason
- Problem Solve
- Greater Depth
This is a common language across the school and from Years 1-6 the work that children complete in books shows these headings and follow this format for all pupils.
Pupils are given opportunities to ‘master’ skills and understand them before allowing them to be applied in other concepts. The practise element of the lesson is an opportunity for the children to practise something they have already been taught. The reason and problem solving elements give pupils the opportunity to use the Mathematics skills and knowledge they have gained in order to solve a problem such as correct or incorrect where pupils have a set of equations with answers and they have to discover this for themselves. Greater depth is about going deeper in their mathematics; solving problems of greater complexity (i.e. where the approach is not immediately obvious), demonstrating creativity and imagination and independently exploring and investigating mathematical contexts and structures, communicating results clearly and systematically explaining and generalising the mathematics.
Mastery of Mathematics at Vicarage Park:
We have a belief and expectation that all pupils can achieve and instil in them a Growth mindset – I can’t do it yet! Pupils discuss and share learning together so all can access and master maths.
All pupils have access to reasoning with questions like:
- What do you notice?
- What’s the same?
- What’s different?
- What do you know?
Using Resources in Maths:
Practical resources are available to pupils in every class in every lesson to enable them to investigate new concepts and tasks and embed their learning. At Vicarage Park School, we use a Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract (CPA) approach to Mathematics in all year groups and make links between these in all sessions. Concrete is the use of practical resources, pictorial is a drawing or diagram to represent these resources and abstract are elements such as the formal equation that links to the learning. Children work collaboratively in pairs or groups and independently during Maths learning with a clear focus on learning from each other and being able to explain effectively to their peers; an important aspect of learning Mathematics.
Learning Times Tables:
We are aware that knowledge of times tables is a crucial part of understanding a wide range of maths and the skills from this are also transferable. Therefore, there are a variety of ways that we support children with their times tables learning in school. This includes a weekly '144 Challenge' which is adapted according the the age of the children and the use TTRockstars an online platform to support the learning of Times Tables. We also hold regular short burst teaching sessions to focus on specific times tables learning in classes.
