Mathematics

Intent 

At Manor Park Infant and Nursery School, we strive to make maths fun, purposeful and interesting for all children. We aim to equip all pupils with the skills and confidence to solve a range of problems through fluency with numbers and mathematical reasoning.  Children are encouraged to see the mathematics that surround them every day and enjoy developing vital life skills in this subject. We use White Rose to underpin our planning. We aim for every child to develop a sound understanding of maths, equipping them with the skills of calculation, reasoning and problem solving that they need in life beyond school. They will be given access to a variety of mathematical opportunities, which will enable them to make the connections in learning, develop and use new vocabulary and discuss their learning. By working across different representations of learning and using resources, we aim for our children to be confident mathematicians who are independent, inquisitive and not afraid to take risks.

The national curriculum for mathematics 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

Implementation

Our curriculum incorporates the coverage of the statutory outcomes outlined in the Early Years Foundation Stage and KS1 Mathematics Programme of Study – National Curriculum 2014. Our planning is based on the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning to guarantee consistency, coherence and progression throughout the EYFS and KS1. In addition, staff refer to other materials to support short-term planning. These are used across EYFS and KS1 allowing children to be exposed to a variety of different types of learning and problems to solve. Teachers implement our schools’ agreed Calculation Policy. To learn mathematics effectively, some things have to be learned before others and this order of small step learning is factored into our planning (e.g. place value needs to be understood before working with addition). At Manor Park Infant and Nursery School, we have an emphasis on number skills first, carefully ordered, throughout the curriculum. Our pupils engage and enjoy using concrete resources to experiment and complete practical activities. Our pupils also use pictorial representations. These representations can then be used to help reason and solve problems. Using both concrete and pictorial representations enables the children to understand abstract methods.

Children take part in explicit daily mathematics lessons with a specific focus on either Number or Measure, Geometry or Statistics. All areas of the mathematics curriculum are continually revisited through planned short or longer in-depth teaching sequences to enable children to develop a depth of understanding. At Manor Park Infant and Nursery School, we regularly give our children opportunities to use and apply their mathematical learning in everyday situations, aiming to embed mathematical skills across the curriculum.

Impact

 The impact of our high-quality maths curriculum will be to develop children who are confident, keen and unafraid mathematicians who are equipped with a wealth of knowledge to draw upon to solve problems.
We measure how well we are doing by:

• Assessing our children’s outcomes against the ELGs for EYFS and the end of Key stage 1 expectations for Y1 and Y2.
• Monitoring the work children do and their response and attitudes to learning.
• Speaking with children so that they can demonstrate their developing skills and knowledge and show what they know, can do and to check they remember more than they did before.