Maths
Maths Intent
At Christ Church, we have adopted a Mastery approach in order to deliver the three aims of the National Curriculum: fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Underpinning this pedagogy is a belief that all children can achieve in Mathematics.
Our approach aims to provide all children with full access to the curriculum, enabling them to develop independence, confidence and competence – ‘Mastery’ in Mathematics in order to be independent Mathematicians who are well equipped to apply their learning to the wider world.
Our commitment is to ensure that our children recognise the importance of Mathematics in the wider world and that they are able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. Children will be encouraged to develop their curiosity about the subject, and to appreciate the empowerment of its use.
Our children will become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics developing conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. They will be able to solve problems by applying the skills they learn to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
We plan our learning with a Mastery approach to the curriculum. Problem solving is vital and opportunities are given to calculate with confidence, allowing children to solve sophisticated problems in an unfamiliar context. The mapping of Mathematics across the school shows clear progression in line with age related expectations. Pupils are challenged through problem solving and reasoning activities, while those identified as SEND or needing extra support are supported completely, revisiting learning where appropriate.
Through quality first teaching, our children will be equipped to utilise their knowledge of Mathematics to enhance their learning experience throughout the school curriculum and beyond. We teach the skills to ensure our children are resilient learners who become life-long mathematicians.
Maths at CCCE
At Christ Church our maths curriculum aims to provide children with the opportunity to develop a curiosity for maths, develop enjoyment and passion for the subject, allow them to understand the world around them, and reason mathematically. We are dedicated to providing our children with a maths curriculum which allows them to have a deep understanding of the concepts they are learning about. We apply the ‘Concrete – Pictorial – Abstract’ method to our maths lessons which means that children are always given the opportunity to understand a concept through using concrete manipulatives (such as Numicon, base 10, counters etc.) before moving on to representing it pictorially and then moving into the abstract.
We are also committed to giving our children a maths curriculum which allows them to apply mathematical concepts into real life situations. Children will be given the opportunity to discuss, reason and problem solve in real life contexts as well as having the chance to practise fluency in mathematics (solving basic calculations). We aim to develop confident and resilient mathematicians with a growth mindset and a love of learning maths.
Mathletics
Mathletics is an on line learning resource that is utilised to support maths learning both at school and at home. Every child, from year 1 through to year six, has access to the Mathletics website, with a personal login. Teachers select Mathletics activities for the children to complete for homework on a weekly basis as well as ensuring that the children have access to other areas of the website if they wish to complete additional activities and challenges, such as 'Live mathletics.'
Master of Tables (MOT)
All children from year 2 onwards complete MOT tests (both weekly and termly). These are designed to support the children’s learning of times tables and related division facts, allowing them to quickly recall these facts supports children when moving on to written calculations. The weekly MOT test assesses a child’s knowledge of the focus times table(s) for that week. The termly MOT test assesses a child against a number of times tables. Children are awarded a certificate when they achieve ‘Mastery’ in the focus times table group.
In order to help them to practice their times tables skills children use an online resource named: Times Tables Rock Stars. Every child, from year 1 through to year six, has access to the TTRS website, with a personal login. Teachers select appropriate times tables for children to practice from years 2-6. All the children have access to other areas of the website to complete additional activities and challenges to improve their fluency skills and are able to challenge other children and teachers to a battle. For this the child selects the person they want to challenge and then answers a set of questions resulting in a score. When the person challenged logs on they are able to complete the same challenge to see if they can beat the set score. This provides a real purpose and motivation for the children.
Ways to support your child at home:
There are many ways to support your child at home. Talk to your child about numbers, count with your child. Allow children to group things, asking them questions about their groupings. Practise their times tables. Talk about shapes, how are they the same / different? Allow them to use available resources from around the home to support their learning e.g buttons, lollipop sticks, marbles etc...
Spring Term 2022
This term on 4th February, we celebrated number day, which helped to foster a ‘can-do’ attitude towards maths. During the day children were able to take part in Dress up for Digits. They wore an item of clothing with a number on it (football shirt, cap, netball shirt or even a onesie! And they completed a wide range of fun maths activities throughout the day. Many children chose to donate £1 to the NSPCC, which will go towards helping to prevent abuse and will enable further services to be there for children.
Why not take a look at some of the fun activities that the children completed during the day:
EYFS
KS1
KS2
Autumn Term 2021/2022
This term Christ Church took part in the November Numeracy Challenge run by Mathletics. This was an international competition with over 1600 schools taking from 57 countries globally. During the week (15-21st November) children developed their number fluency and competed to earn live Mathletics points for our school. Our school did exceptionally well scoring just outside the top 25% - a huge well done to all the children for taking part, especially our top scorers from Salisbury and Truro class.
As part of our Mastery approach to teaching maths at Christ Church, children have been using a range of manipulatives to support their learning in class this term. Research shows that the most valuable learning occurs when students actively construct their own mathematical understanding, therefore children are given lots of opportunities to use concrete resources to explore, develop, test, discuss and apply ideas.
Summer Term 2020/2021
We celebrated Number Day on Friday 7th May. We dressed up with a digit and completed extra maths activities to raise money for the NSPCC.
Autumn Term 2020/2021
During the Autumn Term, we took part in Maths Week. During the week beginning 9th November, we all did something extra in our classes to do with maths. Some of us looked at problems using the bar model, some of us looked at pictures and talked about all the maths that we could see and some of us solved other problems.
Here are some examples of what we did:
