Intent of curriculum for Maths

At Cookham Dean we will equip all of our children with life-long maths skills that they will be able to use in our ever-changing world. We want individuals to be numerate, creative, independent, inquisitive, enquiring and confident throughout all areas of Maths. Therefore, we will model and educate our children to have a secure awareness of the uses and applications of mathematics in everyday life and across other subject areas of the curriculum. We will foster a positive attitude to mathematical learning as an enjoyable, investigative subject and ensure they develop an understanding of the connectivity of patterns and relationships within Maths. We will provide the children with high quality teaching that allows them to learn from teachers, peers and their own mistakes. Using planning, monitoring and evaluating within our maths lessons will provide personal qualities such as resilience, independent thinking, cooperation and self-confidence through a sense of achievement and success. We want all children to discover the beauty, power and curiosity of this subject.

Implementation of curriculum for Maths

At Cookham Dean teachers base their planning from the Abacus scheme of work, but also use White Rose, Nrich and other sources to deepen children’s' understanding further. Abacus gives the teachers a platform to teach high quality lessons, delivered in small steps, building on previous knowledge, ensuring that all children make progress from their starting point. Teaching in small steps and re-visiting areas of maths will help embed mastery into their long-term memories. Teachers have the flexibility to change or move objectives around within a year group, in order for Maths to have context/meaning to the children. Teachers are actively using metacognition to show children how to approach a range of questions, with the teacher modelling to their classes the benefits of using metacognition in their lessons.

We use a variety of teaching styles to suit all children and nearly all lessons will start off with modelling by the teacher, then whole class practise. During the input stage, children will be shown a variety of ways to approach their work using a range of resources to promote an environment whereby, ‘Every-one can do it.’ These resources are used to scaffold learning until conceptual understanding has been gained and are also used to ‘prove’ a concept at a deeper level. Washing lines, working walls, classroom displays are used to give children independence when they are working and we believe that all children are given the opportunity to choose their own level of challenge to make their learning more meaningful to them. Mathematical vocabulary for every lesson is clearly shown and discussed at the start of the lesson and all children are encouraged to use this along with examples of sentence openers to answer questions throughout the lesson. At Cookham Dean, we always start the lesson with counting and or times table activities followed by a mental oral starter which 

enables children to further embed previously taught objectives. Problem solving and reasoning runs hand in hand with fluency in order for children to experience maths for a purpose. These activities can involve a question where by the children can work collaboratively, justifying their reasoning through partner/group talk using the correct mathematical vocabulary. Children are encouraged to take risks and our approach builds resilience and confidence.

Early morning work and homework related to the work that has happened ensures that children gain a good recall of times tables and number bonds etc… Individual teachers choose which area of maths they use for morning work.

At Cookham Dean we use a variety of ways to mark. During a lesson, marking will happen whilst the children are working, which enables the teachers/TAs to pick up on any mis-conceptions straight away and allows children to adjust their work accordingly. We encourage peer marking and the marking of their own work. At the end of the day, and by the end of one week, every child will have a pink question to answer, which can be a harder question to progress their learning or a question that they have to either explain or justify using the correct terminology. They may also be asked to explain how they got to their answer.

We also use a variety of software on laptops or I Pads, such as Purple Mash, Active Learning platform to enhance the learning of the children. We make maths visible throughout the school by having ‘mix-up’ Fridays, where we choose an area of Maths and throughout the school, activities are set up in each classroom and children have the responsibility and freedom to see how maths works throughout the school. We take part on local and national maths competitions and as we believe that all children should realise that maths is intertwined in other areas of the curriculum, we actively promote the use of maths in many areas of the curriculum such as Geography, Science, Computing, History and MFL.

Impact of curriculum for Maths

At Cookham Dean, we believe that when the above is implemented, that all of our children will develop a love of maths, be able to ‘talk maths’ using age appropriate vocabulary, be able to challenge themselves in problem solving and reasoning using concrete and visual representations and know that maths is used in everyday life skills. We believe that that revisiting key areas 3 times a year, allows children to firmly master their maths and will develop deeper learning for some children. For children, who lack confidence in their maths, we have a structured, tailored programme that not only closes any gaps but will also give those children more confidence in approaching maths activities. Through our formative and summative assessments, we are able to adapt our plans instantly, to meet the needs of all children, so that all children make good or accelerated progress from their starting point. When children leave Cookham Dean Primary School, we want all of our children to be equipped with a love of maths that will take them further on their learning journey.