Maths

Mathematics is the music of reason.
— James Joseph Sylvester, English mathematician

Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.
— David Hilbert, German mathematician

Mathematics is a language.
— Josiah Willard Gibbs, American scientist

Mathematics

Our Vision:

We endeavour to ensure that all children at Woodlands benefit from a high-quality maths curriculum which serves to create competent mathematicians with a secure understanding of key concepts in maths.  These strong foundations can be used and built upon in different stages of their lives.

The engaging and comprehensive mathematics curriculum at Woodlands School is rooted in educational research and aims to develop children’s ability to

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics

• reason mathematically

• solve problems by applying their mathematics

• build confidence and resilience to achieve in maths.

How We Teach Maths:

We follow the National Curriculum and utilise the White Rose Maths scheme to support the planning and delivery of our maths lessons. It provides a structured curriculum with clear progression from one concept to the next, aiming to build pupils' fluency and proficiency in maths whilst encouraging them to make connections between topics and apply their knowledge.  Our curriculum fosters a mastery approach which focuses on developing a deep understanding of mathematical concepts by following a clear and coherent sequence of small steps. It is designed to spark curiosity and excitement and help nurture confidence in maths.  All children, when introduced to a concept, can build on their understanding by following a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach.

Concrete – children have the opportunity to use concrete objects, such as Numicon, base 10 and place value counters to help them understand what they are doing.

Pictorial – alongside this, children use pictorial representations such as place value grids and part-whole models. These representations can then be used to help reason and solve problems.

Abstract – both concrete and pictorial representations support children’s understanding of abstract methods, leading to the use of formal written methods.

Children are given time to practise new learning repeatedly, in order to consolidate their ideas.  We use the teaching prompts of ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’.

Our maths lessons expose children to rich vocabulary which they are encouraged to practise through scaffolded sentence stems and verbalising explanations.

Concepts are continually revisited and practised through our lesson starter questions – ‘Flashback 4’.  Links to previous concepts are also made explicit during lessons.  In addition to the maths lesson itself, children complete a calculation each day to practise their fluency of formal/informal calculation methods – depending on their stage of development.    Pupils also benefit from extra sessions to practise their rapid recall of number facts – including those from the multiplication tables.

‘Numbots’ and ‘TTRockstars’ are used both within school and for homework to support the maths curriculum by encouraging children to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics.

Teachers make constant informal assessments throughout maths lessons as they take feedback from children, which informs their teaching.  Teachers work flexibly and make necessary adaptations in response to the needs of the children.  Spending longer on topics can serve to deepen children’s understanding and ensure that everyone is ready to progress.  More formal assessments are made on a termly basis, using the NFER resource from Year 1.