Maths
At Langland Community School we use a mastery approach to maths.
Maths is taught daily, with an additional fluency session, focusing on number facts.
Intention: Our children will leave our school:
- With a strong, positive sense of the power of mathematics to influence the world around them;
- As a creative thinkers, able to reason and solve mathematical problems in a range of contexts and beyond the school day;
- Being fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics;
- Able to connect mathematical ideas fluently, accurately and rapidly;
- Able to enthusiastically and confidently use and apply their mathematical knowledge and skills.
Implementation: Our teachers deliver a sequential mathematics curriculum, using the mastery approach, to continuously build on prior knowledge, both between mathematical units and each year group, to ensure progress for all.
Planning and Lesson Design
Our Long Term Plan follows the National Curriculum and plots the progressive learning journey across the academic year, for all year groups. Quality, government approved, planning resources from the Power Maths scheme and NCETM are used to support planning. Teachers provide opportunities for explanation, modelling, practice and recall during every session. They identify prior learning, and introduce key mathematical vocabulary—including STEM sentences—, structures and representations to build children’s understanding and minimise potential misconceptions so children can take small steps to support them discover the underling mathematical patterns and structures.
What you can expect to see in our mastery maths lessons...
Across each taught unit, the following aspects of mastery will be seen:
- Explicit opportunities for children to become fluent in their number facts
- A learning journey supported by small steps in learning
- Regular opportunities for retrieval practice
- Procedural variation, which helps draw the children’s attention to certain features hence providing opportunities for intelligent practice
- Conceptual variation, where mathematical features are presented in different ways to build children’s flexibility with applying their maths
- Common misconceptions unpicked with the children, as they been identified and are planned for, therefore teachers can expose structures securely
- Manipulatives being used so children can ‘see’ the structure of the mathematics and to scaffold their learning (concrete representations)
- Pictorial representations being used to expose the structure of the mathematics and reinforce the learning of the taught concept to deepen understanding (pictorial representations)
- Number sentences, expressions and equations in the written form (abstract representations)
- Children’s learning journeys being recorded in an age appropriate way
- Precise, accurate mathematical vocabulary being used by all
- STEM sentences which draw attention to the main learning intention e.g. ‘There are __ equal groups of __. There are __ altogether’.
- Talk partners being used to share strategies and enable children to explain their mathematical thinking and reasoning
- Teachers modelling efficient methods inline with the learning journey
- Teacher feedback given to help children know what they have done well and what they need to do to improve on their learning journey
- Opportunities for challenge being provided through questioning