Curriculum Intent

Our aim is for all children at Istead Rise Primary School to develop a secure foundation of mathematical knowledge and skills that will serve them throughout their lives. Children will learn essential basic skills, enabling them to build a confident, deeper and wider understanding of more complex and challenging mathematics. We aim for all children in our school to become competent and confident mathematicians who are able to fully engage with the maths required during everyday life and who are prepared for the more complex secondary maths curriculum they will need to engage with in the future.

Through our teaching and learning of maths, we aspire for all children to develop a genuine interest and enjoyment of maths which will enable them to make links between their concepts and recognise the benefit of their knowledge and skills beyond school.

We follow the national curriculum for mathematics, it aims to ensure that all pupils:  

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.  

• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language 

• can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

All of our mathematical learning supports our core values by making our pupils independent, resilient, reflective and keen to take on a challenge.

Curriculum Implementation

During daily maths lessons, children complete a range of essential arithmetic tasks, including regularly revisiting all four key operations, securing number facts and developing efficient calculative skills. Children will also have the opportunity to rehearse the rapid recall of times-table facts on a daily basis.

In addition to learning the core essentials and throughout structured units of learning, pupils will develop their fluency, reasoning and problem solving skills across a range of mathematical domains, including:

• Number and place value

• Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (calculations)

• Fractions, decimals and percentages

• Ratio and proportion

• Algebra

• Measurement

• Geometry – properties of shapes

• Geometry – position and direction

• Statistics

All content as outlined in the National Curriculum programmes of study will be delivered in sequences of thoroughly planned and grouped lessons, which link topics and skills in a logical fashion and support an effective progression of skills.

Children are regularly assessed and teachers will strive to rapidly address any identified errors or misconceptions through adaptation to planning and effective in-the-moment feedback. 

Children’s learning is  recorded in their individual maths books. Children take pride in the layout of their work and have a clear understanding between the link of clear working out, peer or self-marking and looking back to see if/ where they have made errors. Grouped and partnered learning is also employed regularly.

Our youngest learners are exposed to a number-rich environment and are provided with a broad range of engaging opportunities to explore the concepts of numbers, counting and mathematics. 

Information on our sequences of learning can be found below.