Intent

At Callington, our aim is deepen the children’s understanding of Maths and not accelerate learning; as a result, our pupils develop fluency before onto reasoning and problem solving. We are embracing the mastery approach where are Maths Lead and Year 3 teacher are currently working with the Cornwall Maths Mastery Hub to develop greater understanding and to further support and embed the mastery approach into our school. We want pupils to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, to be able to see relationships, to reason, problem solve, think independently and to persevere when faced with challenges showing a confidence of success.  

Our teaching is richly supported by the use of pictorial and concrete resources throughout all year groups before moving to the abstract. We value the microscopic gains all children make and therefore believe in offering opportunities for all children to deliberately practise their fluency is vitally important and this is a key feature of every one of our lessons.

We ensure that the majority of pupils will move through the curriculum at broadly the Same pace. However, based on AFL, our teachers make decisions about the progression of the children based on their level of understanding. Therefore, this allows pupils to be challenged by ‘going deeper’ and having the opportunity to access a variety of sophisticated problems before any new concepts are introduced. Those learners who are not sufficiently fluent, have the opportunity to consolidate their learning through additional practise before moving on.  

We aim for our learners to:  

• Have the best possible start by teachers ensuring pupils close the school entry gap in knowledge of basic mathematical facts, concepts, vocabulary and symbols.
• Access high quality lessons that are both challenging and engaging. 
• Have a variety of mathematical opportunities enabling them to make the connections needed for greater depth learning. 
• Become confident mathematicians by having fluent knowledge and recalling number facts and the number system.
• Develop their independence by encouraging them to be inquisitive and ask questions to ensure they have a strong mathematical foundation and an interest to self-improve. 
• Learn maths is a part of everyday life and apply their skills to a range of contexts. 
• Have the ability to embrace the value of learning from mistakes and false starts. 
• Have fluency in performing written and mental calculations and techniques. 
• Use a wide range of mathematical vocabulary. 
• Become committed and passionate about the subject. 
• Become confident in using full sentences to give focus and structure when explain their reasoning

Implementation

Planning and teaching:

At the heart of the delivery of our core resource ‘White Rose’, is a clearly structured and well-sequenced teaching and learning process that helps us make certain that every child masters each maths concept securely and deeply. For each year group, the curriculum is broken down into core concepts, taught in units. A unit divides into smaller learning steps – lessons. Step by step, strong foundations of cumulative knowledge and understanding are built. Where possible, it sees all children learning the same concept, each finding and mastering challenge at their own level within their year group. Our curriculum builds on the concrete, pictorial, abstract approach (CPA). By using all three, the children can explore and demonstrate their mathematical learning. Together, these elements help to cement knowledge so children truly understand what they have learnt. High quality resources are used in conjunction with White Rose, such as NRICH and NCETM to support, stretch and challenge all children within the classroom providing them with opportunities to reason and problem-solve.  In addition, the school’s calculation policy is used to ensure a coherent approach to teaching the operations across our school.

One of the key underlying elements of White Rose is its practical approach, allowing teachers to make maths real and relevant to the children, no matter their age or ability. Manipulatives are essential resources for both key stages and White Rose encourages children to use these at every opportunity; continuing the Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract approach right through from EYFS to Year 6.

This maths teaching is enhanced by daily arithmetic practice – ‘Flashback 4’ providing children with the opportunity to recap and ensure essential skills are regularly revisited and retrieved to strengthen retention.

In instances where children have not understood a concept, we employ a ‘Next Day Intervention’ model. This model is designed to enable pupils to “keep up” not “catch up”.  Teachers mark pupils' work during the lesson or soon after so that pupils who need extra support get it the next day, enabling them to keep up. Teachers use the results of ongoing summative assessments to identify common errors/ misconceptions to inform next steps in teaching and learning. Children’s progress and attainment are discussed by teachers and SLT termly as part of Pupil Progress meetings. 

Assessment: 

• Formative assessment and the use of mastery questioning. E.g. “How do you know?” “Prove it?” “True or False?” ‘‘Justify with mathematical vocabulary.’’
• Summative assessment using Cornerstones in years 1-6 each term. Teacher’s also use SATs assessments in Year 2 and 6. 

Impact

We aim to provide children with an exciting, ambitious, broad and balanced curriculum that will instil a love of learning for life. Our approach enables all children to become lifelong learners by developing transferable skills to equip them to become successful citizens. We are an inclusive learning community, in which everyone is valued as an individual and supported to progress. We have high expectations for all our learners and seek to engage them with high quality teaching and engaging content.  

Our curriculum aims to support our children to understand and make links in their learning, deepen their understanding, knowledge and skills and encourage their passions and enthusiasm for the subjects that we teach.

We endeavour to provide all children with an environment in which they can thrive, develop curiosity and independent learning behaviours, which enables them to actively participate and learn study skills now and for their future. We encourage them to have high expectations of themselves through questioning, discussion and through the learning evident in their books. We aim for every child to make good progress using these principles.