Curriculum Statement

Mathematics

St Katherine’s Church of England Primary School

St Katherine’s Church of England Primary School’s chosen Curriculum Drivers - SPIRITUALITY, DIVERSITY, ENVIRONMENT and POSSIBILITIES - are derived from the background and context of our school and its pupils and will help to shape our curriculum breadth in all areas of the curriculum, including mathematics.

 

Intent

 

Mathematics is an important creative subject that helps us to understand the world and environment around us. We want all pupils at St Katherine’s C of E Primary School to experience the beauty, power, enjoyment and ‘awe and wonder’ of mathematics, nurturing their spirituality and developing in them a sense of curiosity about the subject. At St Katherine’s C of E we foster positive ‘can do’ attitudes and we promote the fact that ‘We can all do maths!’ We believe all children can achieve in mathematics, and teach to secure and deepen understanding of mathematical concepts through manageable steps. We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning and provide challenge through rich and sophisticated problems, exploring all possibilities in terms of strategies and answers.

 

We aim for all pupils to:

 

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
• be able to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of challenges with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios.
• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present justification, argument or proof, using mathematical language.
• have an appreciation of number and number operations, which enables mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately.

 

Implementation

 

Our whole curriculum is shaped by our school vision, celebrating diversity and enabling all children regardless of background, ability or additional needs, to flourish to become the very best version of themselves they can possibly be. At St Katherine’s we have adopted the White Rose Maths Small Steps schemes of learning to support teachers’ planning. Skills and knowledge are built on year-by-year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children. Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Each lesson phase provides the means to achieve greater depth, with all children provided with opportunities to solve rich and sophisticated problems, as well as exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate.

 

Impact

 

By the end of KS2 we aim for children to be fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics with a conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. They should have the skills to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of situations with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios. Children will be able to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language