Maths at The Bishop’s.

At The Bishop’s Primary Academy, Maths is seen as an integral and essential element of our everyday lives and a necessary foundation for understanding the modern world.

Daily teaching combines a concrete – pictorial – abstract approach (CPA) enabling children to explore mathematical concepts.  By revisiting these concepts year on year children can build upon and deepen their knowledge and understanding. 

Children at The Bishop’s will have fluent and rapid recall of the key number facts required to support their learning, including recall of times tables and number bonds. The children will be equipped with a wide range of strategies that can be used to problem solve and understand how to analyse a problem, independently developing a plan to work systematically and find a solution, calling upon resources (concrete or abstract) where necessary. They will clearly articulate their reasoning and use accurate vocabulary to do so.  Pupils will make rich connections across mathematical ideas to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics

Through a conceptual, engaging, practical and challenging learning experience all children leaving The Bishop’s will have an appreciation of the power of maths, a sense of enjoyment and a curiosity about the subject.  Maths is taught using White Rose Maths.

Mathematical teaching and learning at St John’s is outlined in detail below.

Early Years

Early mathematical knowledge is an essential foundation of every child’s educational journey.  What they learn in maths in these early years is a major predictor of later success.  The children are taught Maths through the NCETM Maths programme, ‘Mastering Number’. This programme aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children.  The children learn about shape and space through the White Rose Maths curriculum.

Years 1 and 2

The key focus of mathematics teaching in Key stage 1 is to ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value.

By the end of year 2 pupils should know the number bonds to 20 and be precise in using and understanding place value.

Pupils should develop their ability to recognise, draw, describe, compare and sort different shapes.  They should also use a range of measures to describe and compare length, mass, capacity/volume, time and money.  The children continue with the NCTEM programme in KS1 in addition to their daily maths lesson. The aim of this programme is that over time the children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number.   

Years 3 and 4

The key focus is to ensure that pupils become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and place value.  Pupils will develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers.

Pupils will develop their ability to solve a range of problems including with simple fractions and decimal place value.  They should draw with increasing accuracy and develop mathematical reasoning so that they can analyse shapes and their properties.  They should use measuring instruments with accuracy and make connections between measure and number.

By the end of year 4 pupils should have memorised all of the multiplication tables up to and including the 12 multiplication table.

 Years 5 and 6

The key focus is for pupils to extend their understanding of the number system and place value, to include larger integers.  They will develop the connections between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio.

Pupils will be expected to solve a wider range of problems which will demand efficient written and mental methods of calculation.  With this foundation in arithmetic pupils will be introduced to the language of algebra as a means for solving a variety of problems.

Geometry and measure will consolidate and extend previous knowledge developed in number.  Pupils will classify shapes with increasingly complex geometric properties and learn the vocabulary they need to describe them.

By the end of year 6 pupils should be fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages.

July 2024