We recognise the importance of maths as a subject in its own right as well as a set of skills to be used across the wider curriculum and crucially in the children's lives beyond education. 

Our curriculum intent for maths can be found here:

The content and principles underpinning the 2014 Mathematics curriculum (which can be found at the bottom of this page) and the Maths curriculum at Weston-on-Trent reflect those found in high-performing education systems internationally, particularly those of east and south-east Asian countries such as Singapore, and China. The following principles and features show how this approach is implemented within school:

• Teachers reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Mathematics.
• The majority of children 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 planned 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 children regularly to identify those requiring intervention, so that all children keep up.

Our calculations policy shows how concepts are introduced using concrete, pictorial and abstract representations. Within lessons new concepts are generally shared within the context of an initial related problem, which children are able to discuss. This initial problem-solving activity prompts discussion and reasoning, as well as promoting an awareness of maths in relatable real-life contexts that link to other areas of learning. In KS1, these problems are almost always presented with objects (concrete manipulatives) for children to use. Children may also use manipulatives in KS2. 

Teachers use careful questions to draw out children’s discussions and their reasoning. The class teacher then leads children through strategies for solving the problem, including those already discussed. Independent work provides the means for all children to develop their fluency further, before progressing to more complex related problems. Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Each lesson phase provides the means to achieve greater depth, with more able children being offered rich and sophisticated problems, as well as exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate.

To support this way of teaching we have adopted the White Rose Maths scheme as the basis for our maths teaching from year 1 to 6 and the Master the Curriculum Early Years - Reception White Rose Supporting Scheme for the children in EYFS.
 

We feel that these two schemes allow children at Weston to develop their skills as mathematicians right from the start of the journey in school through to the end of year 6. The EYFS scheme has resources that are aligned to both the National Curriculum and the White Rose scheme. The documents below provide details of what is covered each year.

Please use this link to see how the EYFS prepares the children for their later learning.

To aid children’s understanding and to help parents/carers support their children’s learning in maths we have prepared a list of the maths key instant recall facts (KIRFs) for each year group.

We have also produced overviews of the key learning for each year with tips on how that can be supported at home.

Times Tables

The fluent recall of both multiplication and division facts (times tables) form a crucial part of children’s understanding of maths and we see regular practice of these both in school and at home as an important part of our teaching. To support the children’s learning of times tables we use Tackling Tables. This has both a physical card game and an online version which is used both in school and at home.