St Joseph And St Teresa's Catholic Primary School
At St Joseph and St Teresa’s we take a Mastery approach to the teaching of maths. Mastering maths means pupils of all ages acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject. Achieving mastery means acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that’s been taught to enable pupils to move on to more advanced material. We believe that all children can be successful in the study of maths and prior attainment should not limit what a child is capable of learning.
Each unit of work in maths is planned coherently, sequenced appropriately and broken down into small steps of learning. To support us with our planning (long, medium and short) we use Mathematics Mastery plans from Reception to Year 6, however these plans are adapted to suit the needs of our children and reflect the fact that we have mixed year group teaching.
The aim for all of our children is that they will move together through their learning at the same rate and therefore avoid any gaps being created (gaps will serve to hold some children back in the future). We have high expectations for all and so we do not differentiate through activity (differentiation through activity will create gaps and sends a message that not all children need to learn the lesson content). All children are given the same work initially and there are planned opportunities to deepen their learning through targeted questioning and specific tasks.
Children who do not met the learning objective for a lesson are identified and given a same-day intervention, where possible. If the majority of the class have struggled, teachers reflect on their planning and adapt it to ensure that the needs of the children are met (further steps may need to be taught or perhaps prior learning understanding was lacking and therefore needs to be addressed before new learning can take place).
Children’s work in books includes elements of fluency, reasoning and problem solving so that children are exposed to varied question and problem styles. Feedback is given orally throughout the lesson and at the point of learning, written feedback is also provided, where it is useful.
Maths Meetings/Party provide opportunities for pupils to practice basic skills and concepts (fluency, consolidation and application of learning). They are timetabled as stand-alone sessions (lasting approximately 10 minutes), and take place at least three times a week.
Curriculum Map
Progression in Calculations
Key Representations
Information for Parents
This is a website we use throughout school to help the children practice their times tables knowledge. All children have been sent home with log in details for the website and we strongly encourage children to access this at least three times a week as part of their homework.