Sankey Valley St James CE Primary School

Maths is a whole network of concepts and relationships. It equips pupils with a uniquely powerful set of tools to understand and change the world. These tools include logical reasoning, problem solving skills and the ability to think in abstract ways. Having these skills equips pupils with the power to understand and change the world.

Maths is integral to all aspects of life and with this in mind at Sankey Valley St James Primary School we are committed to providing exciting and challenging learning experiences for all of our children in order to ensure that they develop a positive and enthusiastic attitude towards mathematics that will stay with them.

At Sankey Valley St James we implement a mastery approach to our mathematics curriculum from EYFS all the way through to Year 6.

The National Curriculum 2014 has six main areas of study:

• Numbers (including place value, addition, subtraction, fractions, decimals and percentages)
• Ratio and Proportion
• Algebra
• Measurement
• Geometry
• Statistics

We refer to the National Curriculum and use White Rose planning alongside resources from the National Centre of Excellence for Mathematics (NCETM) to form long, medium and short term planning.  These schemes support a mastery approach to teaching and learning and have number at their heart. They ensure teachers stay in the required key stage and support the ideal of depth before breadth.

Using White Rose small steps documents as a starting point, our teachers carefully plan and deliver a series of lessons which allow children to first build a solid conceptual understanding of each mathematical strand. Then once this has been established, we expose children to problem solving and reasoning activities which require children to apply their knowledge and understanding in a meaningful way.

Early Years Foundation Stage

In the EYFS we use White Rose planning documents alongside the EYFS Curriculum to plan for daily lessons, activities and experiences.

In EYFS the classrooms provide a rich and stimulating environment for children to immerse themselves in maths. These carefully planned areas change on a regular basis and encourage children to develop their mental maths and practical skills. Teachers in the Early Years classrooms also ensure that spontaneous teaching of Maths happens as part of the daily provision. We give all the children ample opportunity to develop their understanding of number, measurement, pattern, shape and space. Mathematical understanding is also developed through stories, songs, games and imaginative play, so that all children enjoy using and experimenting with mathematical concepts and become confident and enthusiastic problem-solvers.

Our vision in Maths is to provide a maths curriculum which enables all children to achieve mastery in the key concepts of mathematics. We ensure that we are providing exciting, meaningful and challenging learning experiences for all of our children.

We want our children to ask questions and be inspired, motivated and engage in the joy of discovery.

The intent of mathematics at Sankey Valley St James is to provide a curriculum which enables all children to achieve mastery in the key concepts and principles of mathematics.

The three main principles are:

• Children are fluent in their conceptual understanding and recall of their knowledge through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time.
• Children can reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, building relationships, developing an argument and using mathematical language.
• Children can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasingly confidence, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

Our pupils and staff love Maths and we work hard to promote Maths at Sankey Valley St James. We have themed weeks which incorporate maths. We aim to develop cross-curricular links, encourage creativity and provide opportunities for pupils of all abilities.

We welcome parental support to secure key Maths knowledge and skills in our pupils. Click on the links below for further information.

Please click below for our school links to support for maths calculations.

Please speak to your child's teacher if you have any questions about Maths at Sankey Valley St James Primary School.