Our curriculum is driven at Primary by the 2014 National Curriculum for mathematics, the aims of this are to ensure all learners:

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

The National Curriculum forms the basis for our long-term planning: setting out the expectations in each year group, with links made across strands. The medium-term planning organises the units systematically term by term, with many opportunities for embedding skills with problem solving. Class teachers use AET to support with sequencing learning. Short-term unit plans are prepared for daily teaching.

The curriculum is taught through the units as follows with all year groups teaching the same units at similar times:

Number and place value, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions, measurement, geometry, statistics.

At Stoke Lodge we believe that planning is to inform practice, it moves learning forward and allows our team to break larger concepts down into small steps.

S planning allows the planner to start with the end in mind, what do we want our learners to understand by the end of this ‘sequence of learning’ or ‘learning journey’?

Then using our key learning intentions, our misconception mats and the small steps documents, start to plan the journey the learner will take to achieve this goal.

Effective planning should involve the planner thinking deeply about the steps needed to be taken (the ‘journey’) to enable ALL learners to succeed and meet objectives.

Planning should ensure that the teacher is confident in the delivery of content, as it has been well thought out.

We use S planning to support this.

As part of our teaching of mathematics at the primary phase we have embedded the CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract) approach to lessons. All concepts are introduced with concrete resources for children to feel and manipulate. As their conceptual understanding develops, they move towards the pictorial and abstract stages. Pupils are not pushed to move through these stages until they have shown understanding gained by the teacher through skilful assessment.

The teachers’ role in lessons is to:

• demonstrate a clear modelling
• allow time for discussion and pair work
• provide support and challenge when needed
• present challenge through expert questioning

‘Number Talk’ is a teaching strategy that focuses on developing learners’ fluency, deepening their understanding of numbers, the connections between them and other concepts. It works on supporting learners to become efficient, accurate, and work flexibly at the same time developing their mathematical vocabulary and reasoning skills. Number Talk is about talking strategies rather than always recording maths or using one specific strategy. It’s not about a rapid response but about allowing learner’s time to calculate an answer, explain their strategies, challenging each other, building on what they know and refining methods.

The session is separate from the daily maths session but the question stems and hand signals are used throughout all maths lessons and stem sentences are key. The session is about 5-15 minutes daily and starts with a problem written on the board.

At Stoke Lodge we recognise the importance of ensuring all pupils are fluent in number therefore use Third Space Learning ‘Fluent in 5’.

“Fluent in Five provides a daily set of arithmetic practice, designed to help children develop and maintain fluency in both written and mental calculations. The structure of Fluent in Five is also designed to help children distinguish between written and mental calculations. It provides regular practice of mental and written arithmetic skills to keep calculation skills fresh.” Third Space Learning