Purpose of study

Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It 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.

Aims

Our curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all children:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.

• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language

• can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non- routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

Arithmetic

The ability for children to know and manipulate age appropriate number facts is a key focus of our Mathematics teaching. Daily arithmetic sessions are delivered to ensure that children secure and retain number facts, are taught efficient strategies to support their mental fluency; as well as revising formal written methods for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. 

Our Maths lessons at Wootey Junior School

The school aims to give all children a thorough understanding of number, geometry, measurement, statistics and algebra. A strong emphasis is placed on investigative and problem solving activities to achieve this. The curriculum is designed for children to master mathematical concepts through a process of developing fluency, problem solving and reasoning. The school's curriculum follows the local authorities long term map that provides continuous revisiting of domains throughout the school year.

Individual mathematical concepts are taught in an extended series of lessons that aim to deepen and embed children’s understanding through a range of representations and routines. Lessons over-time follow a structure of fluency, problem solving and reasoning. Children are taught to articulate their mathematical reasoning using appropriate vocabulary.

Times Tables

Children learning to multiply and divide numbers is an essential life-skill. The national expectation is for all children to recall all the times tables up to the 12 times table by the end of Year 4. The children then sit a compulsory national test online to check on how swift their recall is.

We are very passionate about teaching children the sequence and pattern contained in times tables and the fun of being able to recall these important number facts. Children are taught their times tables weekly in lessons but we also actively encourage them to practice them at home using the online platform TT Rockstars. Children can play lots of fun games and battle against the clock and against each other to recall the numbers. We celebrate children's success every week in Celebration assembly and award children the special 'band challenge' band when they know all of the times tables.