Maths

At Boughton-under-Blean & Dunkirk, we feel mathematics is an important and integral part of our everyday lives, therefore a key aspect of the children’s futures.

Maths is seen as a hugely enjoyable, yet challenging part of the day for the majority of children. The staff team try hard to make maths as varied, practical and fun as possible, whilst still ensuring that key skills are taught.

The National Curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• 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.

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.

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 before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.

With mathematics, the way children solve or ‘calculate’ a problem changes according to the number operation involved and its complexity. The methods/strategies these use get progressively more complicated. This is what we call ‘Progression in Calculation’ (PiC).

As a school, we feel that developing children's ability to solve calculations mentally is incredibly important. We have placed a real emphasis on learning our multiplication and division facts and other number facts. Years 1-6 use Maths Shed for homework tasks as one way of supporting this along with regular arithmetic practise in class.

Any support you can give your child at home is both beneficial and appreciated. However, Maths is ever changing and you may well be unfamiliar with some of the strategies we use in school to teach calculations. Feel free to discuss any aspect of the curriculum with class teachers – we are always happy to help where we can.