Mathematics @ Tickenham
Maths Intent Statement
At Tickenham, we strive to ensure that our children leave us in Year 6 as resilient, independent mathematicians who share a passion for the challenge that mathematics can bring. We ensure that all our mathematicians, regardless of their needs or academic ability, are able to access, and enjoy, each stage of their learning journey. Our aim is to set the children up with the necessary skills and knowledge for them to become successful in their future adventures. We aim to prepare them for a successful working life. We incorporate sustained levels of challenge through our ‘Chilli Pepper Challenges’ which are varied and high quality activities with a focus on fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Pupils are encouraged and helped to explore maths in depth, using mathematical vocabulary to reason and explain their workings.
Maths Implementation Statement
Every class at Tickenham uses the White Rose Maths Hub scheme as their backbone for planning both their daily lessons and also following their mixed-age long term plans. The White Rose Maths Hub scheme is based on the National Curriculum objectives and lots of supporting schemes and resources are now available from a plethora of locations. Whilst we use the White Rose resources to plan the foundation of our lessons, we also use a range of different resources and websites to ensure the children are accessing a wide range of high quality question types and styles. The main resources that we use in addition to White Rose are Deepening Understanding, NCETM and NRICH.
As a school, we have purchased a subscription to Times Table Rockstars which everyone can access at home; this helps them to build their fluency and recall speed of the times tables. The children complete morning tasks that they complete as they come in to school; these morning tasks are used as a time to consolidate and revise any prior learning so that it is always fresh in the children’s minds. When needed and where available, the children sometimes benefit from either pre or post teaching of a lesson. If they are pre-taught a lesson, this enables them to have a more personal input where they can go through things as quickly/slowly/ or as many times as needed so that they can then re-join the class and complete the activities with added confidence.
Assessment tools are used regularly in mathematics lessons at Tickenham. Formative assessment is used throughout a lesson by asking the children questions, thumbs up, fingers to 5 and purple feedback comments to name but a few. The teachers will use this information to inform their decisions regarding the rest of the lesson / future lessons to ensure the children individually make the best progress that they can in the most effective way for them. At least 3 times a year from Year 2 onwards, classes will carry out either an NFER paper or a SATs past paper to monitor their attainment and progress. These results are then used to plan and implement any interventions.
We implement our approach through high quality teaching delivering appropriately challenging work for all individuals. To support us, we have a range of mathematical resources in classrooms including Numicon, Base10 and counters (concrete equipment). When children have grasped a concept using concrete equipment, images and diagrams are used (pictorial) prior to moving to abstract questions. Abstract maths relies on the children understanding a concept thoroughly and being able to use their knowledge and understanding to answer and solve maths without equipment or images.
We continuously strive to better ourselves as practitioners and frequently share ideas and things that have been particularly effective. We take part in training opportunities and Trust & regional networking events, such as the Boolean Maths programmes which a range of our teachers across every key stage have been a part of recently.
Maths is celebrated at Tickenham as the children love working through a challenge and seeing how they can make cross-curricular links in their other lessons. The children enjoy coming together to celebrate events such as National Maths Day annually and also battling against each other in Times Table Rockstars competitions.
Maths Impact Statement
As a result of our maths teaching at Tickenham, you should see children who are engaged and appropriately challenged. They will show confidence and an ability to discuss and share their learning and the links made between their learning.
You will see lessons that use a variety of high quality resources that support the children’s learning which encourage them to finish each lesson with a sense of achievement. By tracking and monitoring the learning, we are able to ensure that good progress is made. We use a whole class marking approach to easily see any common misconceptions between children so that support staff and teaching staff use their time effectively and the next lesson can be planned and annotated according to the children’s needs.
At the end of each year we expect the children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). Children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention.