Intent
At Kennall Vale School, we are committed to giving children the best possible start in life. Chances of success are maximised if a child develops a deep, lasting understanding of mathematical procedures and concepts. We see maths as a key language for life that helps children link together scientific ideas and engage and connect with the world around them. We aim to generate a positive attitude to maths and nurture a curious and critical mind-set. We want our children to head into KS3 with a solid foundation including; a good understanding of place value, powers of ten and the ability to quickly and efficiently recall key number facts including bonds and multiplication facts. Whilst it is important to memorise number facts, we focus on their application and encourage efficient number manipulation and fluency.
Implementation
Every child at KVS, in KS1 and KS2 will have a structured daily maths lesson lasting between 45 and 60 minutes. In our EYFS class mathematical skills and concepts are taught through focussed group activities and developed through play and ever-present in continuous provision. We deliver high quality teaching using a bespoke, consistent approach that has been honed in the Maths Hub mastery program and supported by local cluster and TPAT maths hub groups. We aim to ensure all children master the concepts being taught, with an emphasis on place value, combined with a repertoire of key skills including quick recall of number facts, bonds and times-tables. Lessons are broken down into small connected steps that can gradually reveal the concept in question providing access for all children and leading to a greater understanding. This approach gives children more opportunities to view and explore the concept in a variety of contexts. The sequence of lessons as well as the progression within a session itself, is carefully designed in order to draw attention to the mathematical relationships and structures linking the learning point to the fundamental concept being explored. We follow the White Rose maths small steps by and large to ensure coverage but have tailored our delivery in order to provide the best possible service to the children at KVS. We constantly improve and adapt our teaching and lesson materials in order to maintain our very high standards. We use concrete resources, carefully selected manipulatives and pictorial representations, where appropriate, in order to support the understanding of a new concept or to support embedding. Manipulatives can also be used to effectively draw attention to a misconception. As children become more confident they will explore these concepts in greater depth and use a range of reasoning and problem solving activities and effective questioning to develop a secure understanding. As a school we have really embraced the teaching for mastery approach developing our practise with consideration to the 5 big ideas. This year we have begun using the ‘Mastering number’ program alongside our EYFS and Year 1 maths teaching.
Impact
Teachers plan and deliver lessons to address the needs of all pupils with the use of scaffolding, skilful questioning, rapid marking and intervention and carefully designed enriching activities. Consistency from EYFS to Year 6 is vital, teachers refer to our robust and supportive calculation policy, tailor made to fit the needs of the pupil’s at KVS. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly are challenged by being offered rich and sophisticated questions and problems before any acceleration to new content. From EYFS children are supported in developing mathematical reasoning and given opportunities to use shortcuts and problem solving efficiently. We encourage children to explore conjectures and tackle open ended problems, often linked to real world scenarios, which give context to mathematical procedures. We believe the key to success, in early maths, is a strong foundation understanding of place value coupled with the ability to quickly and accurately recall number facts including times tables. We supplement our teaching of the mastery curriculum with daily opportunities to hone these key skills. We have had excellent results in both KS1 and KS2 end of year assessments with 75% at EXS in KS2 and 22% greater depth. KS1 has showed continued improvement with 88% at EXS and 24% at greater depth. Our EYFS had a 2022 ELG achievement rate of 76.5% for maths number.