Maths

Maths at Thameside reflects our 5Rs, curriculum drivers and school motto, ‘Every Child, Every Chance, Every Day’. We believe that every moment should be grasped to give every child the opportunities to deepen and extend their mathematical knowledge and understanding.

The Maths curriculum has been designed to include the rehearsal of core facts, methods and strategies that can be used to complete exercises and solve problems. There are also daily opportunities for explaining, justifying and proving concepts using informal and diagrammatic methods.

In reasoning, we encourage all pupils to deepen their understanding and challenge their findings. 

This is through:

• Talk – explaining methods and solutions, choices and decisions. 
• Read – planning, deciding, organising, interpreting and justifying
• Think – creating, deducing, applying, exploring, predicting, hypothesising and testing.
• Link - analysing, recording, doing, checking and confirming.

Each Maths lesson begins in the same way with a revisit of arithmetic knowledge from last week, last month or last year. This helps us to build connections between what we have already learnt and new learning we do. Previous vocabulary is recapped, followed by a discussion about what we know already that is going to help us with today’s learning. This ensures that pupils build on prior knowledge to support new learning. Children are aware of their Maths Learning Journey each week and are able to talk about why they are learning about different concepts.

Our long-term plans demonstrate which concepts are taught and in what order. We follow the small steps of White Rose, however we adapt it to suit the needs of our pupils.  We supplement this with resources such as the NCETM and Nrich. Times tables are practised daily through Times Table Rockstars at home and at school.

Sequences of learning allow pupils to access their familiarity with the facts and methods they need, in order to learn strategies for solving problems. We use carefully planned questions so that pupils are guided to build on what they know.

Assessment in Maths is carried out in three ways: 

Formative
In every lesson, teachers are making informal assessments using a range of activities such as questioning, quizzing, marking and identifying misconceptions.

Summative
In every term, pupils from Y1-6 take part in assessments which focus on arithmetic and reasoning. The results are shared at pupil progress meetings. Maths interventions are put into place for those pupils who are not meeting the expectations for their age.  

Statutory
Statutory assessment in maths takes place at the end of each Key Stage every May.

The EYFS profile against the Early Learning Goals takes place in June.

The Y4 multiplication check takes place in June.