Maths                  

What is the vision for mathematics at The Phoenix Primary School and Nursery?

As a school, we want children to enjoy Maths and relish the pleasure and satisfaction they experience when they are successful.

Maths at Phoenix provides our children with the required knowledge of procedures and the ability to reason and problem solve. Our progressive scheme of work builds on prior knowledge and breaks the curriculum into manageable steps. Teachers are adaptable in their approaches to best suit the needs of the children, at any given time. Children are given adequate time to embed their knowledge and secure their understanding.

At Phoenix, we support a CPA (concrete, pictorial and abstract) approach. Using physical resources to develop mathematical connections alongside pictorial representations, the children gradually move towards a more visual and abstract application of strategies.  Effective modelling and questioning allow children to learn new skills before applying and practising.

The constructs of lessons should be focused on engaging learners with teaching and tasks that deepen children’s understanding and to provide children with the skills that make them efficient problem solvers in mathematics and any other facet of life. As a part of lessons children develop their knowledge, using concrete, pictorial and abstract representations. Units are taught in accordance with the National Curriculum, by using the Phoenix progression for each year group, which ensures a balanced weighting of topics, whilst prioritising key areas of the curriculum.

How is the vision for mathematics to be achieved?

At Phoenix, our expectations for Maths are:

• 10-minutes adult-led group session in Nursery 2.
• Whole-school 55-minutes maths lesson per day in Reception and KS1 (45-minutes maths lesson in autumn) and 60-minutes maths lesson per day.
• Daily counting stick lessons in Reception.
• Weekly 30-minutes counting lessons in Year 1 counting in multiples of 10s, 2s and 5s across 100 including number bond progression (Year 2 also complete number bond progression).
• Weekly 30-minutes times tables lesson in Year 2 and Year 3 and daily 20-minutes times tables lessons in Year 4 including times tables progression.
• Weekly 30-minutes maths flashback lesson in KS1 and KS2.
• NumberStacks maths is used as an intervention for children identified as working below age-related from Reception to Year 6.

How does the school know if the Mathematics curriculum has been effective?

Firstly, students who have followed the school’s mathematics curriculum will be effectively prepared with the key skills, knowledge and vocabulary to access more specialised mathematics curricula in secondary school. They will also have developed the mathematical skills essential to their success as adults in later life. Some children will also have become sufficiently inspired to follow careers where the application of mathematical skills and knowledge is key. 

Our mathematics curriculum will have been a success if, with every new concept, children can:

• Represent it in a variety of ways.
• Explain it to someone else.
• Create their own examples.
• See connections between specific mathematical concepts and other facts or ideas.
• Recognise it in new situations and contexts.

Children are formally assessed three times per year (once per term). Teachers continually assess children on a day-to-day basis by assessing whether they have met and are secure in their understanding of a Learning Objective.  Ultimately, we want children to apply the skills they have developed to solve mathematical problems in the classroom and beyond.

/docs/Mathematics_Progression_Map_