St Michael's C
of E Primary SchoolMaths
"Maths may not teach me how to add love or subtract hate, but it gives me every reason to hope that every problem has a solution"
Albert Einstein
Why do we teach Maths?
At St Michael's, we believe that a high quality education in Maths not only provides vital tools for understanding the world around us, but also helps develop broader problem solving skills. It also stimulates a curiosity that allows children to thrive in all areas of their learning.
Maths is all around us - we use maths skills and capabilities every day, from estimating and making calculated choices, telling time, handling money to following a recipe and measuring accurately. Everyone requires some level of specific mathematics knowledge! In most professions a sound understanding of maths is a key requirement and the stronger it is, the better the individual is able to perform in their role. The children of St Michael's are encouraged to develop their mathematical understanding to its full potential to prepare them for their future in the world.
What do we teach?
To ensure we embed the fundamentals in Maths, we start our Maths lessons with 'CLIC', which is an approach to embed basic number skills appropriate for each child's age. These skills focus on Counting, recall (Learn its), making connections (It's nothing new) and Calculation strategies. Through learning these basic number skills, children develop their mathematical fluency and competency and as a result they have greater freedom to explore more complicated mathematical concepts through problem solving and reasoning.
Our whole class teaching is aligned to the National Curriculum and follows our whole school Maths overview, focusing on Mastery, number fluency and flexibility. Our resources are drawn from the Mastery teaching guides (pedagogy) and the White Rose maths scheme of work.
At the centre of the maths mastery approach is the belief that all children have the potential to succeed, with all children given the opportunity to develop a deep and lasting understanding of mathematical procedures and concepts. A child with maths mastery can represent a mathematical concept or skill in multiple ways, use precise mathematical language to communicate their ideas and independently apply a concept to new problems in different situations.
To this end we use concrete and pictorial models and representations to enable children to understand the structure behind the maths they are taught, engage fully as a learner by reasoning and making connections and demonstrate their thinking and understanding confidently. Our Calculation policy details the calculations, models and representations children are continuously exposed to as part of their learning. Children are encouraged to use stem sentences and jottings to verbalise and develop their ideas. We encourage children to learn from mistakes and develop the values of perseverance and resilience. Maths is an excellent opportunity to develop collaborative working and effective communication.
St Michael's Calculation Policy