A Bunbury Mathematician
Bunbury ‘mathematicians’ let their light shine brightly.....
At the heart of everything is a personalised approach to each unique individual as part of our Christian Community. The strong family ethos ensures that all children and staff feel valued, respected and grow in self-confidence. Enthusiastic and caring staff with high expectations, demonstrate care of the whole child. Through God’s guidance we encourage each and every child to let their light shine.
Article 29: Children’s education should develop each child’s personality, talents and abilities to the fullest. It should encourage children to respect others, human rights and their own and other cultures. It should also help them learn to live peacefully, protect the environment and respect other people.
The curriculum at Bunbury is constructed in order to provide systems of learning and lived experiences that enable the pupils at our school to develop and grow as learners, empowering all children to fulfil the school’s motto: ‘Let Your Light Shine’. The curriculum is focused on growing the whole person, through a broad range of subjects and wider opportunities. Its intent is to empower pupils in learning; to facilitate efficient acquisition of knowledge and to provide clear steps for progression and to develop a rich cultural capital. Through high-quality texts, resources and experiences, it aims to inspire our pupils to develop inquiring minds and to have a world view that is full of hope, with a knowledge of the love of Jesus. The curriculum meets the needs of all our children through a loving, nurturing environment, rich in social, spiritual and moral learning. It equips our pupils with the tools that will enable them to succeed in academic, professional and personal contexts throughout their lives.
Following extensive pedagogical research about teaching mathematics, we were particularly inspired by the approach of Ban Har Yeap and his focus on all children being ‘mathematicians’, with a solid conceptual understanding, rather than children who learn mathematical procedures. Maths Mastery is a method of teaching that ensures children understand mathematical concepts in depth.
We want our pupils to be confident mathematicians, who experience the full richness of an exciting and varied maths curriculum. The children learn in a fun and practical way which ensures they have a concrete understanding of concepts before moving on. Our approach to teaching maths enables children to work collaboratively, communicate their ideas clearly and problem solve effectively.
In EYFS, we use White Rose whilst lessons are conducted following the Maths No Problem structure. In KS1 and KS2, we use Maths No Problem for our teaching of maths. Children complete daily discrete maths lessons and also apply mathematical skills through a topic-based approach. Lessons are adapted to support struggling learners and rich, sophisticated problem solving and reasoning questions are set to challenge advanced learners.
We believe that where possible, lesson objectives should be taught in a real life, practical context which helps children to understand the how and why of maths instead of solely the rote procedure. Maths should be engaging and resources are available in all the classes for children to support children to visualise their learning. This enables children to make stronger connections, develop a long-term understanding and also fosters and enjoyment of the subject.
We aim to build pupils' understanding of mathematical terms and symbols steadily and systematically through the school. We provide opportunities for pupils to talk mathematically and to communicate ideas on paper, in pictures, using written algorithms, with charts/diagrams etc. We appreciate that mathematical English may have different meanings from ordinary English and highlight/explain those differences as appropriate (e.g. digit, volume, difference).
In KS1 and KS2, we use the ‘Maths No Problem’ Singapore text books and interactive resources to plan and teach our maths lessons. We aim to introduce the children to maths through the use of concrete, pictorial, abstract methods to give children a deeper understanding of how mathematics works.
The only way to achieve mastery is to build upon a solid foundation of conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. To ensure a deep level of understanding, more time is spent on each concept.
The teaching of mathematics in the Foundation Stage consists of daily maths workshops that focus on specific areas of the subject. These sessions focus on counting, using number names in the correct order and recognising numbers in the environment. The children learn through a range of practical contexts using images, objects, stories, rhymes and songs to engage and promote the importance of number. The children are introduced to the language of ‘more or less’ and start to recognise simple shapes from everyday objects. They begin to develop early problem-solving skills to encourage them to use maths outside of the classroom. In Reception, Maths teaching is based on the EYFS curriculum and supported by the use of White Rose 'Mastery Maths' resources. The lessons are structured following our Maths No Problem approach.
We explicitly teach each topic once throughout the year but these areas of maths are met continuously through our representations and lead in problem solving or reasoning questions in other maths lessons. Therefore, nothing is truly taught in isolation.
The children are provided with feedback every single lesson through our Green 4 Growth system. We keep track of which children are able to access or move beyond the task and also those who need extra support on a daily basis to ensure that they are all given the opportunity to make good progress through extra intervention sessions and small group work.
We carry out White Rose end of unit assessments for each year group and biannual Maths no Problem tests.
The following videos explain how Maths No Problem supports pupils' mathemtacial development in more detail:
Fluency and Times Tables:
We teach maths fluency and times tables both in and outside the maths lesson for an extra 10 minutes a day during reistration (challenge time). The focus of this is to make sure there are the building blocks of mental methods and quick recall of number facts to enable the children to then tackle the more problem solving and reasoning questions within lessons.
Times Tables Expectations:
A list of the sequence in which we teach times tables is as follows:
Year 2 - 2,3,5,10
Year 3 - 2,3,5,10,4,8,
Year 4 - 2,5,10,4,8,3,6, 11, 12,7
Year 5&6 - All of the above with revision / emebedding and inverse operations (division) as well as square numbers.
End of Year Maths Expectations:
There are files attached to this page which show the relevent end of year expectations for maths for each year group.
We also use various practical resources such as Numicon to support our maths teaching. This resource set helps our children to make mathematical connections and to move from practical number activities to abstract calculations easily.
Here is a link to the Numicon webpage; you can access some free resources via the link.
https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/teaching-support/pages/numicon/?region=uk
Homework
We include practical application of mathematics in our 'Take Away Homework' so that children can choose to engage in a meaningful task which challenges them to apply their skills.
We expect children to practise times tables each week from Year 2 (x1,x2,x5,x10) to Year 6 (up to x12). Teachers will regularly assess the children's knowledge of times tables and their ability to apply this knowledge flexilbly (and the inverse).
My Maths is an online resource purchased by school to allow the children to access up to date maths activities to support their learning at home. Parents can access activities set by the class teacher via their child's password to support their learning using the most up to date methods.
Files to Download
