Maths

Curriculum Overview

• Early Years & Key Stage 1
• Lower Key Stage 2
• Upper Key Stage 2

Maths Curriculum

 

Intent

Our maths curriculum is an ambitious mastery approach to maths which is accessible for all pupils. It develops children’s fluency, mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills. 

“Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.” - National Curriculum 2014

At the William Hogarth, our maths teaching and learning resonates with this statement. We fully appreciate the contribution of mathematics to everyday life and society. Equally, we value the contribution of mathematics in other areas of the curriculum and in promoting children’s curiosity, enjoyment of learning and intellectual development.

William Hogarth Mathematicians:

• enjoy the maths they are taught;
• notice and appreciate maths in the world around them;
• have a positive attitude towards learning maths and expect to be successful;
• acquire a strong fluency in basic number facts and procedures;
• calculate using a range of strategies, choosing the most efficient methods;
• talk and reason about their understanding, using precise mathematical language;
• identify underlying structures, patterns and relationships;
• approach problems with resilience and creativity;
• have a deep conceptual understanding, representing key ideas in diverse ways and appreciating connections between different areas of the curriculum;
• develop both decision making and logical thinking;
• apply and develop their mathematical understanding and knowledge in all other areas of the curriculum;
• work both collaboratively and independently.

 

Implementation

We are a maths mastery school and we are part of the local NCETM hub. A teaching for mastery approach is used throughout the school, based on the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics’ (NCETM) “Five Big Ideas”, first published in 2017. Further information about the Five Big Ideas (coherence, variation, fluency, mathematical thinking and representation and structure) can be found on the NCETM’s website https://www.ncetm.org.uk

We are also a data-informed school. This means we use data precisely and forensically to diagnose what children need to learn. Formative and summative data analysis are used to target our mathematics curriculum highly effectively to meet children’s individual learning needs. This ensures that every child leaves our school with a confident grasp of mathematics, having experienced a varied and rounded mathematical curriculum.

We employ three core teaching strategies to support our children’s progress in mathematics:

• Concrete learning – the use of physical resources to expose the inner structures of mathematical concepts. This supports children in ascribing value and meaning to numbers and mathematical processes, and clarifies more abstract concepts
• Pictorial learning – the use of diagrams and images to visually represent a mathematical idea or concept and to clarify and represent more abstract concepts
• Abstract learning – the use of numbers, symbols and operations in mathematics. As children progress through their mathematical education, they move towards increasingly formal abstract methods.

Impact