Westbury Leigh Mathematics
"Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers."
Shakuntala Devi, Indian writer and mental calculator
We aim to provide a maths curriculum that is a foundation for understanding the world, enables the ability to reason mathematically, and promotes an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics with a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.
Every child takes part in a daily maths and fluency lesson. Throughout these lessons children will see concepts represented through the use of manipulatives (objects), pictures, and in the abstract (numbers and symbols). This allows all children to develop a deep understanding of how maths works. Alongside this, each lesson has a focus on mathematical language which we embrace as part of our focus on Oracy. This allows children to explain, reason and problem solve.
To ensure whole school consistency and progression, we use the White Rose Maths scheme alongside other resources such as 'I see Reasoning' and NRich. Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Many of these blocks will be revisited yearly so that children are able to build on their prior knowledge.
At our school, we use the mastery approach to mathematics (see the strands below). Integral to this is the message that all children are capable of achieving in maths, and therefore the vast majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace. Intervention and individual support is provided to help children keep up where necessary
The strands of mastery teaching:
Fluency
At Westbury Leigh, fluency is considered vital. Fluency is understanding the meaning of the operations and their relationship to each other alongside quick recall of key number facts. We aim for our children to have a large knowledge bank of number facts and a deep understanding of the base 10 system. This will enable them to work accurately, automatically, efficiently, flexibly and with a deep sense of number. At school, we have regular fluency sessions, using the Mastering Number Programme in KS1, a focus on times tables from years 2 -4, and arithmetic in years 5-6.
To support the pupils’ learning of these at school and home we subscribe to Times Tables Rockstars and Numbots. We also highly recommend the White Rose 1 minute maths app – available for free on most devices, which enables children to
practise what they have been learning in small and manageable chunks.
RRS Article 28 - You have the right to a good quality education. You should be encouraged to go to school to the highest level you can.
