Maths

Who can I speak to about Mathematics? 

Your child’s class teacher will be able to answer any questions about your child’s maths learning. You can also speak to our Mathematics Leader at LHPSN, Miss Evans. Miss Evans also keeps LHPSN’s established relationship with the GLOW (Gloucestershire and Worcestershire) Maths Hub at the heart of our maths teaching and learning.

Information Evening – Introduction to Maths Teaching at LHPSN for EYs and KS1

We recently held an online workshop for Early Years and Key Stage 1 parents to discuss approaches to maths at school. Slides can be found here: Presentation October 2023

Our Curriculum Intent
The language of mathematics is international. Mathematical skills are vital for the life opportunities of our children; are essential to everyday life; critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically and problem solve, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

The National Curriculum for Mathematics (2014) aims to ensure that all pupils:
● become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics;
● reason mathematically;
● can solve problems by applying their mathematics.

Our vision and curriculum intent at Lickey Hills Primary School and Nursery is for all children to become fluent mathematicians, with the self-belief they can achieve this goal, having a deep and secure understanding of concepts to enable reasoning and problem solving in a range of contexts. We believe that all children can succeed in mathematics and our growth mindset approach is embodied in our Can-Do Kangaroo Maths Mascot. This character helps children to remember the positive messages we embody in our vision for mathematics. We intend that all children believe they can achieve excellence; that they can learn from both mistakes and challenge; and that they can experience a sense of awe and wonder as they investigate number, structure, space and change. With this approach mirroring LHPSN’s motto, ‘Dream, Believe, Achieve’, we wish all pupils to leave our school with an enjoyment, confidence and love for the subject.

Our Curriculum Implementation
To achieve our vision, we have adopted a Teaching for Mastery approach to our mathematics curriculum. Children are guided along a coherent, small step journey together, using concrete, pictorial and abstract representations to explore concepts and build connections, with opportunities to both support and challenge thinking and reasoning. This approach ensures a deep, secure understanding for all and is characterised by the following principles and features:

• The large majority of pupils progress through the curriculum content at the same pace. Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support and intervention.
• Teaching is underpinned by methodical curriculum design and supported by carefully crafted lessons and resources to foster deep conceptual and procedural knowledge.
• Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts.
• Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess pupils regularly to identify those requiring intervention and those ready for deeper challenge.

These approaches provide all children with full access to the curriculum, enabling them to achieve confidence and competence – ‘mastery’ – in mathematics. 

Our curriculum impact
To achieve our vision: for all children to become fluent mathematicians, with the self-belief they can achieve this goal, having a deep and secure understanding of concepts to enable reasoning and problem solving in a range of contexts.

What does Maths look like at LHPSN?

Our Maths Curriculum Policy can be found here:

Maths Curriculum Policy

It is important to us that children enjoy maths and see its relevance in everyday life, hence we try to design our maths lessons to be interactive and engaging.

The Foundation Stage

In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), we relate the mathematical aspects of the children’s work to the Development Matters statements and the Early Learning Goals (ELG), as set out in the EYFS profile document. Mathematics development involves providing children with opportunities to practise and improve their skills in Number and Numerical Patterns (ELGs). In addition, our curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills. 

The main driver for our curriculum in EYFS is NCETM’s Mastering Number programme. This project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Children visit early concepts from this programme in Nursery, before following the 31-week Mastering Number project fully in Reception. The focus is on subitising (recognising an amount without counting) and developing a deep understanding of numbers to 10 using a variety of representations, including Numberblocks, tens frames and Hungarian number frames (dice patterns) and rekenreks. This video shows the rekenreks in action.

Years 1 to 6

Our mastery approach is supported by the use of the ‘Maths – No Problem!’ programme across the school, along with a range of other resources to create further challenge and problem solving, such as White Rose, I See Maths and nRich activities. Each Maths lesson is planned to a carefully designed structure that first aims for children to explore new concepts under the close supervision of their class teacher, followed by an opportunity for guided practice before independent tasks. This allows for more successful learning, that is connected to existed knowledge and avoids misconceptions. 

Further details about our lesson structure can be found here: Maths Lesson Structure

Skills progression, covered by the Maths – No Problem! resources, through Years 1 to 6 can be found here: Maths – Progression of Skills

In Maths, we are keen to focus on oral and mental calculation strategies, problem solving and investigational work rather than providing a multitude of mechanical pencil and paper based tasks. Written calculations are taught of course and though we are aiming for our children to be proficient in reliable and efficient methods we also want them to understand the maths behind the procedure.

For more detail on this please see our calculation policy linked here: LHPSN Maths Calculation Policy 

At LHPSN, we understand the importance for children in becoming fluent in procedures, concepts and key instant recall facts (KIRFs). In addition to our main maths lessons, we provide daily opportunities for children to keep arithmetic skills ticking over and to practise and learn KIRFs. Having quick, accurate and efficient recall and application of these procedures and number facts to hand, vastly reduces cognitive load for our children, when they are challenged to solve more complex, unfamiliar problems. As well as daily practice in school, children are given further opportunity to secure these facts through weekly home learning tasks.

For further information about the KIRFs can be found here: LHPSN Key Instant Recall Facts SKILL PROGRESSION

Year Group Medium Term Plans

Click on the links below:

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Curriculum Corner

To gain an insight into Maths in action, take a look at our new Curriculum Corner article here: Maths Curriculum Corner Autumn 23 and one from last academic year by clicking this link: Maths Curriculum Corner Spring 23.

Useful Resources for Parents

Parent Videos– “Maths No Problem”

Important Maths Messages to Share