Maths Champion
Mr Boulter
My name is Mr Boulter and I am the Maths lead at Fairmeadows Foundation Primary School. I believe that every children is a mathematician. Maths is so far reaching, it is in all we do in our day to day lives. Having a confident understanding and positive attitude to Maths has a positive impact on our children beyond our classroom walls.
Vision
We strive for our children to be successful and proficient mathematicians who can solve problems, fluently recall facts rapidly and reason mathematically while justifying their reasoning. This will provide them with the essential life skills, to be capable whilst understanding and contributing to the world around them. It will allow them to create solutions to problems in a range of settings. We want our children to enjoy and embrace learning maths, to have a go at new challenges, to persevere and keep improving showing our schools learning powers in what they do.
Aims and Goals
Our aims and goals for maths at Fairmeadows is to have every child become a confident, engaged and successful mathematician.
Characteristics of a Mathematician
Curriculum
A core spine of knowledge built on termly -
Our pupils should be able to organise their knowledge, skills and understanding around the following learning concepts:
These key concepts, underpin learning in each learning milestone. This enables pupils to reinforce and build upon prior learning, make connections and develop subject specific language.
Maths will be taught in a cyclic approach revisiting the 4 operations every term.
This curriculum design is based on evidence from cognitive science; three main principles underpin it:
The final week of each term is allocated to a STEM project that allows for the children to apply their mathematical skills to create solutions to problems in a range of settings. Through our Curriculum, the teaching of Mathematics is extended beyond the daily Mathematics lesson. Links are made, where relevant and purposeful, between Topics and Mathematics. This allows children the opportunity to apply Mathematical skills and concepts, as well as enabling children to see that Mathematics is part of everyday life.
Our pupils are encouraged to physically represent mathematical concepts. Objects and pictures are used to demonstrate and visualise abstract ideas, alongside numbers and symbols.
Concrete – children have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing.
Pictorial – children then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations, which can then be used to reason and solve problems.
Abstract – With the foundations firmly laid, children can move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.
Assessment
Assessment is ongoing throughout the year. Initial assessments is undertaken in the first weeks in September, and this assessment informs planning and teaching. Summative assessment takes place at the end of each term in order to inform future planning, teaching and support.
Our children receive quality feedback both written and verbally. They are given opportunities to respond to this, have a clear understanding of their areas of strength and weakness and how they can improve. This ongoing feedback allows our children to be the very best they can be a reach their full potential.
Internal and external moderation form an important part of our assessment process to ensure that all our judgements are consistent and fair across all year groups and inline with schools across Derbyshire.
Mastering Number
Fairmeadows is taking part in the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) project to support the teaching of basic maths skills in our school.
This project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense (a deep understanding of number) for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2.
The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 and begin KS2 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Research shows that children with secure ‘number sense’ early on will make more progress later on in Maths and across the curriculum.
Each class, in KS1, has a daily ‘Mastering Number’ session in addition to their Maths Makes Sense lesson. Over the year, the children will experience using a range of resources and representations, including a small abacus-like piece of equipment called a rekenrek.