Maths

Each separate subject here at St Mary's has a Lead teacher. In Maths, the Lead teachers are called Mrs Coleman and Mrs Hill. Together, they bring many years of leading and teaching maths successfully together with a passion for the subject and its effective delivery here at SMA for the children in their care. Our school are currently on a journey in Maths, Mrs Coleman is currently working with other schools to develop our own Teaching for Mastery. This is where we are develop the children's fluency skills and ensure our children have a deeper understanding of the maths they are learning. Mrs Coleman currently teachers in Y1.

Each subject also has a Link Governor, who supports and monitors progress, in conjunction with guidance form the SLT. In the case of Maths, this is Mr Linley; a parent governor who also works in finance, with an interest in Maths. Although new to the role, he will bring his own expertise and a vested interest in the children at St Mary of the Angels and the experiences available to them.

Each class has its own class page, where homework, projects, home communications etc are publicised and shared on a very regular basis. 

Our Curriculum philosophy is below, showing why we do it the way we do it here at St Mary of the Angels.
 
 

Our philosophy in Maths is similar to that in other subjects, and is a mixture of what we know about our children and how they learn, and what we know from research about the best ways to teach children to learn.

We aim to:

 

  • Develop a mathematical curiosity in the world around our pupils, through practical activities and opportunities to find out for themselves
  • Encourage and promote enquiring minds to ask why and how, when presented with problems or theories
  • Give purpose to learning- through practical applications and examples of when and how the skills they are learning will help them in the future
  • Teach new concepts progressively and well in all areas of the Maths Curriculum 
  • Know the starting points of the pupils we cater for, over time, and build on these to refine confidence and independence in new mathematical skills
  • Promote an excited, happy response to Maths lessons for our learners, through engaging resources, positive and constructive feedback and challenging children to believe in themselves
  • Challenge learners to remember more and know more, through the consolidation and reinforcement we build into our lesson sequences
  • Challenge children to remember more and know more through the links we make mathematically and the approaches we develop towards problem solving
  • Keep abreast of new and useful resources and approaches to learning in Maths, sharing these and trialling new ideas, over time, to ensure that our delivery is the best it can be
  • include all of our learners through an awareness of the different processing speeds, learning styles and specific needs of our pupils. Plan to cater for these
  • Challenge children where they are not performing in Maths as well as they should be- engaging with home, parents and staff to support and coach these children to overcome barriers to learning over time 
  • Link Maths learning with other areas of the curriculum where appropriate
  • Inspire children to better themselves and to be proud of their own personal best in all areas of maths
  • Expect children and their parents to support learning through consolidation of the basic skills which support mathematical calculations - number bonds, times tables etc
  • Actively encourage healthy competition and the place of constructive peer support and collaborative learning in all aspects of problem solving
  • Listen to pupil voice and respond where we feel it will positively impact on learning
We have produced Maths Key Knowledge organisers to support learning in maths. The current termly KKO's can be found on your child's class page. These help you to know what is being taught, for your child. Hopefully, they also give you a flavour of the type of vocabulary and the type of learning that will take place in each year for your child. You can see below an example of some of the Maths KKO's the children use in this subject. 
 

A flavour of our children's views are below, so that you can see that we listen to children and they empower us to help them become effective leaders. You can also hear that our methods are effective.

In Spring 2023, we asked our children how they felt they were managing in Maths, what they particularly enjoy, what they need to work on and how they use resources in class. Here are some of their comments:
  • I like everything, it helps you in every subject. 
  • We can look for pink pen or gap tasks. 
  • We use KKOs to summarise what we will learn. 
  • I like in the start of the lesson when we do some practise questions, Flashback 4, Daily 10 and counting.
  • We use rulers, white board and pen, PowerPoints, display, KKO, cubes, counters, number lines to help with addition and subtraction, number squares, , place value counters, pictures on the board, compasses, sentence stems, vocabulary boards. The maths display –Times tables display multiplication cards, RNCA. 
 
This term we are working on strategies to support them to know what they need to work on and how they can become more confident with their learning. We are encouraging the use of resources to support learning and to ensure that their learning and understanding of mathematical concepts are embedded. 
 

A Long term overview is below. This is a guide to map out what is being covered and taught when and where loosely across the school in Maths, currently. It might also help you as parents to plan and link into the work we are covering and when.

 

Our Action Plan in Maths is below

Our Policy in Maths and our Calculation Policy are below.

Some examples of our successes are here for you to appreciate. These link in with parent and governor views also.