Intent

At St Laurence Church of England Primary School, we believe that mathematics is an important creative discipline that helps us to understand and change the world. We want all pupils at St Laurence Church of England Primary School to experience the beauty, power and enjoyment of mathematics and develop a sense of curiosity about the subject with a clear understanding. We foster positive can-do attitudes and we promote the fact that ‘We can all do maths!’ We believe all children can achieve in mathematics, and teach for secure and deep understanding of mathematical concepts through manageable steps. We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning. At our school, the majority of children will be taught the content from their year group only. They will spend time becoming true masters of content, applying and being creative with new knowledge in multiple ways.

We aim for all pupils to:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
• be able to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios
• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.
• have an appreciation of number and number operations, which enables mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately to be successful in mathematics

Implementation

Here at St. Laurence Church of England Primary School, we use the Power Maths scheme from EYFS through to Year 6. It has the teaching for mastery concepts interwoven throughout each lesson. We employ a quality first teaching approach for all and identify, which pupils require additional support to succeed. We also identify those children who flourish in maths and offer additional challenges and opportunities to deepen their understanding of the subject.

We aim to provide the children with a broad and varied experience of maths, ensuring strong links throughout the taught curriculum and seamless progression through the year groups.

• In the EYFS, children’s achievements are on-going and are assessed against the Early Learning Goals.
• Assessment for learning is well established throughout the school and the use of questioning, observation and marking is
• We use termly summative assessment using the Rising Stars NTS tests which helps to inform teacher assessments.
• We use the Shine intervention system to develop a personalised intervention approach.
• Statutory assessments take place in EYFS in the form of a baseline and again at the end of Year 6.

Power Maths - A Whole-Class Mastery Approach for Ages 5-11

We teach using Power Maths. This is a mathematics scheme (published by Pearson, and developed in partnership with White Rose Maths), which is a world-class UK curriculum mastery teaching programme created by leading educational experts from the UK and China.

Recommended by the UK's Department for Education, it has been designed to spark pupils' excitement and curiosity about maths whilst developing their confidence.  It combines interactive teaching tools, rich and quality textbooks and practice books for primary aged children.

It is built around a child-centred lesson design that models and embeds a growth mindset approach to maths and focuses in helping all children to build a deep understanding of maths concepts.  It also has a continuous and embedded approach to teacher support and professional development throughout.