Maths at Millfield

Mathematics is 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, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

The Aims of the Curriculum

The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including the varied and regular practice of increasingly complex problems over time.
• Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, understanding relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
• Can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

Mathematics is an interconnected subject in which pupils need to be able to move fluently between representations of mathematical ideas. The programmes of study are, by necessity, organised into apparently distinct domains, but pupils should make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. They should also apply their mathematical knowledge to science and other subjects so that not only are the mathematical concepts interconnected in maths lessons but the whole school curriculum shows an interconnectedness.

Maths at Millfield 

Following the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum, Maths will have elements of maths mastery which include: 

• fluency
• reasoning
• problem solving
• and interconnectedness.

Fluency: Can the child recall facts and procedures easily? A quick recall of facts, such as, their times tables, number bonds to 10 or properties of shape helps them to work on understanding other mathematical concepts in different contexts. 

Reasoning: Can the child explain why their answer is what it is? Can they justify their solution?

Problem solving: Can the child pull on their understanding of different mathematical concepts to help them solve the problem. It may be that different children would solve a problem in different ways.

Interconnectedness: A child may use their understanding of multiplication to help solve a problem about measuring fractions of material to make a cuddly toy. This would show an interconnectedness between mathematical themes. Equally an activity may highlight the connectivity of the whole curriculum, for example, recently years 5 and 6 used their knowledge of ratios to calculate the amount of different ingredients needed to make frumenty for the number of children in their group during design and technology cooking lessons.  Years 3 and 4 used their knowledge of grid references to navigate the school grounds and locate OS symbols in geography and year 1 used their measuring and counting skills to compare leaves in science lessons.

Assessment

The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, decisions about when to progress should always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems to use their knowledge in different situations with alternative representations before any acceleration through new content.

Daily assessment takes place during the day whenever a child is working mathematically. It may be in the form of verbal feedback or written feedback but it always aims to help the child understand how to move forward in their learning.

Weekly assessment generally takes place in the form of a test. This could be tables, arithmetic or reasoning. This allows the children to use their new knowledge, it allows the child to become familiar with the layout of a written test and it allows the teacher to know exactly what every child needs next in their learning.

Summative assessment takes place at the end of the autumn and summer terms using Nfer tests.  This helps us to track children and to put interventions in place if they are not on track to succeed in statutory assessments.

Statutory assessments take place at the end of Early Years, Year 4 and Year 6. 

If you would like to see an example of the most up-to-date SATs follow the links below.

KS2 Paper 1: Arithmetic

KS2 Paper 2: Reasoning

KS2 Paper 3: Reasoning

All children in Year 4 will take the statutory Multiplication Tables Check (MTC). They will need to know all of their times tables up to 12 x 12.  Playing on TTrockstars will help the children to learn their times tables in a fun and engaging way.  The soundcheck replicates the MTC and therefore provides ideal preparation for the check in June.  The website called timestables.co.uk is another excellent site to help you learn your tables. Follow the link below to see if you can earn your Big Diploma:

times.tables.co.uk