Maths in School

Our Approach to Maths

We aim for all of our children to be mathematically confident and have a love of Maths, that they can apply in their future lives.  At each stage of learning, the children should be able to develop a deep understanding through our mastery approach, which is built upon over time, feeling successful, confident and eager to continue their learning. 

A mathematician at Kirton Lindsey Primary is:

• Enthusiastic and positive

• Curious

• Confident

• Independent

• Able to work with others

• Able to learn from mistakes

• Resilient 

• Hard working and able to persevere 

We intend to foster these characteristics by: 

• Creating lessons with meaningful connections to real life

• Designing lessons which enable children to have deep and sustained understanding of topics covered

• Ensuring our children have opportunities to be active in sessions, with plentiful opportunities for discussion and collaboration

• Providing practical and hands on opportunities: concrete manipulatives available 

• Developing independent learners with inquisitive minds through opportunities for exploration 

• Embracing making mistakes as part of the learning process, and developing resilience in our learners by showing them that struggle can be overcome

• Creating a vocabulary rich environment where talk for maths is a key learning tool

• Having high expectations in our lessons through use of mathematical language and the belief that all children can achieve 

• Foster a fascination into the awe and beauty of maths

How we Teach Maths

In Key Stage 1 & 2 Maths is taught daily. Our planning is based upon The White Rose Maths scheme and is adapted to meet the needs of each class. Our arithmetic programme complements this by providing opportunities to revisit previous learning. In each lesson there are opportunities for the children to :

• Explore concepts using concrete, visual and abstract  approaches 

• Work with others, using high quality mathematical vocabulary 

• Develop fluency of the concept/s being taught through a variety of representations

• Reason, solve problems and apply their understanding in many ways

Opportunities for cross curricular mathematics can be found in other subjects, such as science, DT and even art. 

Assessment of Maths

Rigorous assessment is key to ensuring each child makes good progress. Work is marked daily and informs next steps. In each Key Stage 2 classroom, the children self mark their work to aid self assessment and independent learning. Misconceptions are picked up and addressed before the next lesson is taught. The children also have assessments at the start and end of units to monitor initial understanding and progress.  More formal assessments are carried out termly (NFER) to help measure progress and analyse gaps in learning.

Times Tables

In response to the new times tables check at the end of year 4, we include a structured approach to teaching times tables which enables us to build on their times tables skills to reach mastery of all times tables by the end of year 4, with enrichment during the autumn term of year 5.

To support our teaching, we subscribe to the website TT Rockstars, which is a fun, interactive way for the children to practise their times tables and to prepare them for the Year 4 check.