Maths
At Church Aston we believe that every child can be a mathematician. Maths can be seen throughout our world, and we endeavour to ensure that children can identify where maths is used and why it is important. We use the range of maths mastery techniques and teaching strategies to encourage children become confident and fluent in their mathematical abilities.
We aim to ensure that all children become fluent in the fundamentals of maths. That they can reason mathematically and can use their maths skills to enable them to solve a range of mathematical problems.
EYFS
Early Mathematical development starts and is encouraged with dedicated maths sessions and child-initiated activities. The focus comes from the requirements of the Early Years Framework. We look for opportunities, everyday experiences and quality texts that have a mathematical thread running through them to explore mathematical concepts and to stimulate children’s interest in finding out about number, space shape and measures. Our mathematical curriculum allows children to develop a strong grounding in number which will provide the building blocks for the KS1 curriculum. We provide frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding through a range of resources such as using manipulatives, including small dinosaurs, cars, and use tens frames for organising counting. We encourage children to develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built.
KS1
Mathematics is taught daily and focuses upon the requirements of the National Curriculum. It is taught discreetly, and links are made to everyday life, children’s interests, and other curriculum areas. Children develop their mathematical knowledge and skills using a range of maths mastery strategies. They have opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand and explain what they are doing. Stem sentences are used to help children build this ability to explain their understanding in maths. They are introduced to a rich mathematical language that enables them to use the correct vocabulary as soon as possible in their explanations. Children build on their concrete understanding of maths using a range of resources such as cubes, 10 frames, numicon towards a pictorial understanding where pictures are used to represent objects. Children then move on to exploring key concepts and manipulating number in abstract.
We use Mathletics which is an online program to help children practise their mathematical skills at home and challenge themselves mathematically. Achievement in Mathletics has a high profile within the school and is celebrated every week through our Celebrations Assembly.