CURRICULUM STATEMENT
At Dovedale we want our children to receive a high quality mathematics education that aims to ensure all pupils are fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics; have the ability to reason mathematically and can apply their knowledge and understanding to solve problems. We want them to have an understanding of the power of mathematics for their everyday lives and a sense of curiosity that this area of study can inspire. We scaffold our learning through concrete, pictorial and abstract methods (CPA) and develop critical thinking skills.
INTENT
Our intent is for our children to be fluent mathematicians. We strive to provide our children with a high quality, responsive mathematics curriculum that will ensure they are fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics. We want our children to develop skills, understanding and knowledge which will enable them to think mathematically, understand and solve problems and apply powerful methods fluently. As a school we use White Rose mathematics, this allows for block planning of core concepts to ensure fluency across the school. For example, every year group begins the year with a block focusing on place value, building on what went before and adding to this with their year group objectives. Securing basic concepts through block planning allows children to more easily make connections and apply their learning from one concept to another. By using a CPA approach the children can access the learning at an appropriate level.
By using block planning, small steps and a CPA approach we aim for mathematics learning to be a positive experience for all children.
IMPLEMENTATION
Each block of mathematical knowledge is mapped out across the year to build upon previous learning opportunities. We ensure our children have a strong early focus on number and place value in each year group in the autumn term.
As a school we use White Rose mathematics as a resource to support the children’s learning, this ensures that learning is done in a logical sequence. For example, children must focus on place value before working with addition and subtraction and addition needs to be learnt before looking at multiplication (as a model of repeated addition). There is flexibility in how we follow White Rose and teachers use their knowledge of their class to determine how they progress through the support materials ensuring that the pace is right for all learners. We use small step teaching to enable success and revisit previous learning through flashbacks to ensure knowledge is retained. The children are given space to experience success and embed knowledge as well as being challenged to take their learning to the next level. Throughout the unit of work, problem solving activities are used to further secure learning and show how this can be used in different contexts.
Our mathematics curriculum is supported by our calculation policy and our understanding of powerful methods. These methods have been determined through discussion as those methods which support children’s swift accomplishment through a variety of mathematics problems and can be applied across a range of topics.
IMPACT
To measure the impact of our mathematics curriculum children are continually assessed by the teacher and teaching assistants to ensure they are secure before moving onto new learning. Judgments are supported by formative assessment through NFER papers. This is in addition to SATs for children in Years 2 and 6. Scaled scores from the NFER assessments are recorded and inputting into a spreadsheet to track progress.