Mellis Church of England Primary School - 'To Be Our Best'

'It's not that I'm so smart; I just stay with problems longer.'

Albert Einstein.

Intent
At Mellis Primary School we believe that mathematics equips pupils with a uniquely powerful set of tools, through developing an ability to calculate, reason and solve problems. It enables children to understand and appreciate relationships and patterns in both number and space in their everyday lives.  We aim to develop the mantra that: ‘It’s okay to be stuck because we all get a little stuck sometimes and it is fantastic when you get unstuck!’.  Our aim is to provide our children with the key skills needed to become confident and fluent mathematicians.

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.

Implementation
 

At Mellis Primary School, these skills are embedded within maths lessons and developed throughout their learning journey from Reception to Year 6. The school use follows the Mathematics Mastery Approach to teaching Mathematics using the White Rose Maths Hub schemes of work and planning materials in order to deliver high quality maths lessons using the following key principles:

• Conceptual understanding
• Mathematical problem solving
• Language and communication
• Mathematical thinking

Impact
All teachers plan daily mathematics lessons following this structure using an agreed planning format which include the key objectives from the National Curriuclum 2014 for each year group. Planning is completed on a weekly basis which include the learning objective, success criteria, brief text on what the teacher will be modelling, key vocabulary and at least one key open question. We believe that teaching children a wide variety of mathematical vocabulary is fundamental to their understanding in maths.

We ensure that across each term children are given a range of experiences in mathematics lessons e.g. practical activities and mathematical games, group problem solving activities, individual, group and whole class discussion activities, open and closed tasks. We ensure that children can use a range of methods to calculate and have the ability to check whether their chosen methods are appropriate, reliable and efficient.