Maths

At Henley in Arden Church of England Primary School we aim to ensure that all children are number literate, this means having the confidence and skill to use numbers and mathematical approaches in all aspects of life. Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.

• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language

• can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

The Programme of study for Mathematics at Henley in Arden Church of England Primary School is a whole concept approach. We have designed a programme that allows children to increase their speed and recall of number facts quickly, thus positively influencing their arithmetic skills. We aim to promote fluency of the fundamental skills of mathematics, encouraging reasoning and providing opportunities for problem solving. It is our intention that these elements all interconnect with each other, building upon prior learning, connecting their knowledge of different areas within Mathematics, exploring deeper into their understanding and ensuring that they are ready for their next stage of learning.

We aim for children to master the key areas and domains in Mathematics, narrowing the gap between the most and least able learners. The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, decisions about when to progress will always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly will be challenged to deepen their understanding by being offered rich and sophisticated problems and not accelerate through to new content.

The national curriculum for mathematics reflects the importance of spoken language in children’ development across the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically. Mathematics is a symbolic, abstract language. To decode this language, symbols need to come alive and speak so clearly to children that it becomes as easy to understand as reading a story. We believe that all students, when introduced to a key new concept, should have the opportunity to build competency in this topic by taking the concrete-pictorial-abstract approach.

During our daily lessons we encourage children to count aloud, practice fluency, problem solving and reasoning skills and ask mathematical questions. We develop their ability to independently select and use appropriate concrete apparatus to support their conceptual understanding and build procedural fluency. They have the opportunity to independently access and use a wide range of resources to support their work. We develop the children’s ability to represent problems using visualisation skills, including jottings and pictorial representations. Wherever possible, we provide meaningful contexts and encourage the children to apply their learning to everyday situations. Although mathematics is best taught discretely, it has many cross-curricular links. Our school offers a demanding and varied curriculum, providing children with a range of opportunities in order for them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve highly from their starting points. 

EYFS Supporting Documents