At Beech Hill, we aim to produce individuals who are independent, inquisitive, enquiring and confident within a fulfilling and diverse mathematical curriculum. We aim to provide a motivating and inspiring mathematical environment for all our children, from nursery through to year 6.
We supply a vast range of resources so that pupils can develop their mathematical skills to their full capability. Our aim is that the children become fluent in the fundamentals of maths, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
Our maths lessons are relevant to the children and are creative and engaging. We want children to make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems.
How our maths curriculum is constructed
For years 1 – 6, we follow the National Curriculum as defined by the Department for Education. For reception and nursery, we follow the EYFS framework, and White Rose Maths and Ten Town is used to supplement the learning.
The maths curriculum is underpinned by providing our children with opportunities to become fluent in concepts, to reason and to problem solve. They do this by using concrete, pictorial and abstract methods. To help us to deliver the curriculum in a coherent way, we use White Rose Maths where it is broken down into small steps, which we teach discretely in our lessons. Each year group has specific calculation methods and strategies that are used to teach their maths curriculum.
Counting, mental maths and times tables are at the heart of our maths teaching and underpin much of the learning in key stage 2. We have a short focus on a mental maths objective or strategy in each lesson to help our children retain and make links between mathematical concepts.
Calculation Policies
Division
Multiplication
Addition
Subtraction
Times Tables
Long Term Planning
Nursery
Reception
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Maths Must Knows
Below, are a selection of the Must Knows that we provide for each year group, for each maths unit covered. These Must Knows are designed to be used at home by parents as part of homework and revision, in school to supplement work in lessons and to recap previous learning. We want every pupil to be able to recall the facts given on the sheet but also to practise the methods taught. These are carefully structured so that knowledge and vocabulary are sequenced and built upon over time. We are confident that these Must Knows will help our children to develop and retain key knowledge on a wide range of topics and will significantly improve their vocabulary.
A full range of maths Must Knows can be found on each class’ Seesaw account
Cultural Capital in Maths
‘It is the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.’
Ofsted School Inspection Handbook 2019
Cultural Capital at Beech Hill is something we are passionate about throughout all subjects. Maths is a topic that lends itself well to real life situations as we use maths all the time throughout our lives. We have had a themed maths week in autumn term this year to raise the profile of maths and to introduce them to mathematicians that have had an impact on our lives. We have inter school times tables competitions and also competitions within our trust. We take part in Number Day, which helps to raise money for the NSPCC as well as getting children involved in fun maths activities.
We look at real-life topics through our maths lessons, which enhances our children’s cultural capital such as: calculating with money, reading timetables, measuring and links with computing such as programming and pattern.
We also hold an annual awards ceremony to celebrate the amazing maths work that the children do all year round. These are ‘The Mathtas’ and there are several awards that the children can be nominated by their teacher for. These awards include ‘Times Table Rockstar of the Year’, outstanding progress award, the effort award, arithmetic award, reasoning expert and fantastic attainment. These awards are not just aimed at the children who are highest achieving in maths but are aimed at children who make progress from their own starting point, wherever this might be. We have a red carpet and the children dress in party outfits as if they were attending a real award ceremony!
Multiplication Check
From June 2020, year four children will complete a statutory times table check. This check is an online test in which pupils are asked to answer 25 questions on times tables from 2X to 12X. They are given 6 seconds per question, with 3 seconds rest between each question.
The websites below are a useful tool for children to practise as they mimic the actual test they will sit in June.
https://tt.serveweb.co.uk/quiz
https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/
https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check
Each child also has a Times Tables Rock Star account where they have personalised times tables assigned to them by their teacher
https://play.ttrockstars.com/auth/school/student/876
An example of Tangrams being used in year 4 to help with retention of shape knowledge
Year 2 representing numbers using different manipulatives
Children in nursery using giant Numicon pieces to count