Here at Lexden, we believe that maths is all around us. We aim to deliver maths lessons that get the children to think about how they use or see maths in their everyday lives.
From Early years, right through to year 6, we are providing children with tools and methods to access the world around them with a mathematical eye.
Intent:
When teaching Mathematics at Lexden Primary School, we aim for children to:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, 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, inferring relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
- 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.
Following a mastery approach, we aim to maintain children’s progress as close to Age Related Expectation (ARE) as possible. However, decisions about when to progress should always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration on to new content.
Implementation:
Children are supported by their teacher and support staff through a range of tasks and activities, using a variety of concrete and pictorial methods, moving on to abstract representations when they are ready. We focus on Fluency, Reasoning and Problem-Solving skills that are developed in each teaching sequence, across all year groups. Maths lessons are carefully sequenced, building on prior learning and looking forward to the next step.
We aim to get children to prove and explain their thinking when possible, and we use stem sentences along with age appropriate maths vocabulary. We aim to support children with pre-tutoring of a small step when required and we offer post tutoring, hopefully within the same school day, for any misconceptions that may have occurred.
We follow White Rose Maths from year 1 to 6, which allows us to monitor progression across the year groups in all areas of learning. They build upon previous learning using visual aids that they are used to from the scheme. We adapt where needed for individual children's needs, whilst aiming to follow the mastery approach, of all children learning from the same starting point.
More information can be found here:
https://whiteroseeducation.com/
Early Years has set up a long term of maths following EYFS curriculum. They access numbers from 0-10 using Numberblocks©.
Maths is also accessed through stories and songs.
Useful websites to help your child/ren:
Times Tables Rock Stars - all children have a log in from year 2: https://ttrockstars.com
Top Marks - lots of great maths games on here: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/
BBC Bitesize - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zd2f7nb
Primary Games - American site, but great maths games
https://www.primarygames.com/math/
Teach your Monster - Early years focus - https://www.teachyourmonster.org/
Nrich - lots of maths problem solving found here - https://nrich.maths.org/
First and Primary Maths challenge
At Lexden, we look to enter children to take the Maths Association Primary Maths Challenge. This is a set of questions aimed to challenge the children to use their skills to solve problems. We are aiming to try the First Maths Challenge this year too.
In recent years we have had success in the PMC, with children achieving bronze, silver and gold awards, with entry to the bonus round being achieved too.
We were also really proud in 2022 to enter a child into the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge. They excelled through the first round and were invited to complete the Junior Mathematical Olympiad with around 1200 students across the country. They achieved a certificate of merit.