Maths
Mathematics is one of the core national curriculum subjects. We aim to produce confident mathematicians who can use and apply their knowledge and understanding in a variety of contexts. Children are encouraged to take risks and to face challenges and problems with a positive approach.
Mastery Curriculum
The Maths Mastery Curriculum places conceptual understanding at the heart of children’s learning. We follow the Herts for Learning Programme which aspires to produce a secure and sustainable progress in learning maths - based upon a deep understanding of concepts, in parallel with fluency, -enabling connections to be made between mathematical ideas.
The aims of this mastery curriculum are that all pupils:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of maths
Key features of teaching for mastery at Southtown:
- Keeping the class working together with whole class direct teaching
- Practical opportunities and use of a variety of approaches, including games and visual representations
- Frequent opportunities to reason and problem solve
- Emphasis placed upon learning through reasoning, developing multiple strategies and deep understanding
- Rich mathematical talk supported by the teachers’ questioning ( getting the right answer isn’t enough if children don’t know why the answer is the right one)
- Development of understanding through linking ‘concrete’ (materials and resources) to ‘abstract’ ( such as calculations) via pictorial representations ( diagrams and drawings).
- Longer time spent on key topics so learning can be deepened and embedded
- Pre-teaching and follow up teaching sessions as needed
- Increase in challenges, through depth and breadth questioning, open-ended tasks and
problems- to develop reasoning skills.