Mathematics

Mathematics introduces children to concepts, skills and thinking strategies that are essential in everyday life and supports learning across the curriculum. It helps children make sense of the numbers, patterns and shapes they see in the world around them; offers ways of handling data in an increasingly digital world and makes a crucial contribution to their development as successful learners.

At Middlestown Primary Academy, mathematics equips pupils with the uniquely powerful set of tools to understand and change the world. We believe that Mathematics is integral to all aspects of life and we aim to ensure that children develop a positive and enthusiastic attitude in Mathematics that will stay with them throughout their lives.

A positive attitude towards Mathematics is instilled within all of our pupils in order to foster confidence and achievement in a skill that is essential in our society. Through our creative approach to teaching and learning, we also seek to explore and utilise further opportunities to use and apply Mathematics across all subject areas so when our pupils leave Middlestown, they are individuals who are numerate, creative, independent, inquisitive, enquiring and confident learners.

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 nonroutine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into
  a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, teachers at Middlestown make the decisions about when to progress based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly will be challenged through being offered rich
and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material will consolidate their understanding through additional practice before moving on.

Overviews

Teachers carefully sequence their lessons throughout the year so that learning progresses from year group to year group, building on their learning term by term. By creating a yearly overview, maths lessons are sequenced to ensure the pupils at Middlestown develop their fluency in facts and procedures as well as making links between different mathematical concepts.

Early Years

Key Stage 1

Key Stage 2

Weekly Arithmetic