Vision
The vision for maths at Mawnan School is that we ensure everyone who teaches maths does so with confidence in their practice so that we have the ability to provide pupils with a deep understanding of key mathematical concepts and skills that both enthuse and prepare them for the future.
Mawnan School is principally a place for high quality learning. To facilitate this, we continuously strive to do better for the children in our care so that learning is constantly deepened and the experience improved. We are always striving to try new things, to seek to learn from those experiences, and work to adopt and embed the practices that work best.
Maths, is no different to any subject that we teach – we want to deliver the best possible curriculum we can. We want to be experts so that we can deliver with the expertise that the subject deserves - the expertise that our pupils deserve.
Intent
At Mawnan School we are driving towards a love and understanding of Mathematics. We want children to recognise that mathematics is a beautiful subject; as such it has its own unique place in the curriculum at Mawnan C of E.
We aim to provide pupils with powerful ways to describe, analyse and solve problems. The key intentions of Mawnan’s Mastery Curriculum are that pupils experience a sense of awe and wonder as they ‘experience’ mathematics, ‘discover’ more elegant solutions and ‘make links’ between different areas of mathematics.
At Mawnan we believe that:
As such we intend to:
Implementation of the current legal requirements of the Foundation Stage (FS) and the National Curriculum (NC).
At Mawnan, we have a very secure understanding of what ‘mastery’ is and how it looks in our lessons, books and ultimately in the children themselves. The three aims of the National Curriculum are addressed every day (not just in the maths lesson): Fluency – Reasoning – Problem Solving.
By placing opportunities for rapid recall of number facts, calculation, reasoning and problem solving in to series of lessons, we ensure that secure links are made and that prior knowledge is being tested and challenged throughout. This allows our learners to develop a deep and lasting understanding of maths.
Through continuous, reflective training the teachers continue to improve their understanding and implementation of the NCETM's 5 Big Ideas. A true understanding of these ideas will probably best come about after discussion with Mawnan's teachers and by exploring how the ideas are reflected in day-to-day maths teaching, but here’s a flavour of what lies behind them:
Teaching is designed to enable a coherent learning progression through the curriculum, providing access for all pupils to develop a deep and connected understanding of mathematics that they can apply in a range of contexts.
Teachers carefully select representations of mathematics to expose mathematical structure. The intention is to support pupils in ‘seeing’ the mathematics, rather than using the representation as a tool to ‘do’ the mathematics. These representations become mental images that students can use to think about mathematics, supporting them to achieve a deep understanding of mathematical structures and connections.
Mathematical thinking is central to how pupils learn mathematics and includes looking for patterns and relationships, making connections, conjecturing, reasoning, and generalising. Pupils should actively engage in mathematical thinking in all lessons, communicating their ideas using precise mathematical language.
Efficient, accurate recall of key number facts and procedures is essential for fluency, freeing pupils’ minds to think deeply about concepts and problems, but fluency demands more than this. It requires pupils to have the flexibility to move between different contexts and representations of mathematics, to recognise relationships and make connections, and to choose appropriate methods and strategies to solve problems.
The purpose of variation is to draw closer attention to a key feature of a mathematical concept or structure through varying some elements while keeping others constant.
Although the 5 Big Ideas are weaved into our lessons, we also implement some separate maths teaching in order to achieve desired outcomes.
We encourage rapid recall of known facts in all 4 calculations with the building blocks of this starting in the foundation stage with verbal and practical demonstration of skills and understanding.
Mawnan school is involved with the Mastering Number Programme. Mastering Number is being used to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all Mawnan children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. Children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number.
We provide a daily teaching session for all children of 10 to 15 minutes, in addition to their normal maths lesson.
Memorisation and repetition of key facts (times tables and number bonds etc.) are important aspects of learning. Evidence from cognitive science research suggests that learning key facts so they can be recalled automatically ‘frees up’ working memory. It can then focus on more complex problem solving, rather than reaching cognitive overload trying to calculate simple operations. In terms of procedural fluency and conceptual understanding, one should not be prioritised over the other. Learning is most effective when the two are fully integrated.
Mastery is characterised by a belief that, by working hard, all children are capable of succeeding at mathematics. On this basis, and where the national curriculum allows, children are taught all together as a class and are not split into ‘prior attainment’ groupings. In our mixed age classes they may all be being taught together, they may be taught together at first and then split or they may be being taught as two separate year groups - this depends on the national curriculum content and where it overlaps. To help support us with this, we use the White Rose mixed age planning for block units and the White Rose single age planning in Oppie (Y1) and Dart (Y6).
Although we will often use the White Rose materials to support or resource our teaching, the teachers at Mawnan understand that the component thought to be key to the success of mastery is the use of variation theory. Variation theory has several dimensions, including use of multiple representations of what a concept is, and what it is not. It is characterised by a carefully constructed small-step journey through learning. It pays attention to what is kept the same and what changes, in order that pupils might reason. This means that they will make connections and build deep conceptual knowledge.
Variation is applied to practice questions where attention is paid to the selection and order of the examples. Often just one aspect is changed whilst others are kept the same. The intention is to avoid mechanical repetition but instead to promote thinking to make connections. This is also known as ‘intelligent practice’.
Carefully structured teaching is planned in small steps. This provides both the necessary scaffold for all to achieve, and the necessary detail and rigour of all aspects of the maths to facilitate deep thinking. The small steps are connected and concepts are built. This leads to generalisation of the maths, and the ability to apply it to multiple contexts and solve problems - a deep interconnected understanding that can be used in single age or mixed age classes.
A focus on exposing the structure of mathematics and developing an understanding of how and why maths works is crucial to mastery. A key skill of the teacher is to be able to represent the maths in ways that provide access and insight for pupils.
Concrete materials, contexts, drawings, diagrams and equations all play a role. These are discussed through opportunities for pupil-pupil and pupil-teacher talk, to develop reasoning, flexibility and adaptability in mathematical thinking.
Teaching children precise mathematical language and insisting upon its use supports children's ability to think mathematically. Having the language and using it empowers children’s ability to think about the concept.