Maths at Minchinhampton

KS1 Exploring numbers

Y3/4 Growing a pattern

Y3/4 Building times tables

Additionally for our SEND vulnerable learners:

We endeavour to make learning as inclusive as we can, and our ‘Teaching for Mastery’ approach has a belief that all children should have the same opportunities to learning at its core. Within Maths lessons, generally all children are given the same opportunities for success. We believe that scaffolding should occur through support, resources, time and outcome as opposed to directly differentiating by task. Research shows that this way of learning results in positive outcomes both academically, and for the mindsets of our learners. Where possible, our aim is for children to move through the Maths Curriculum at broadly the same pace. If a child is stalling in their learning, the first instance will be to provide extra support to help them to ‘keep up’, rather than ‘catch up’ at a later date. This ‘keep up’ support can be varied but may take form in the way of pre-teaching, discrete interventions or additional adult support within the classroom. In exceptional circumstances, where a child is working significantly below age related expectations, then a more bespoke way of teaching and learning Mathematics will occur to support the specific needs of the child. This tailored support could consist of all/some of the following:  · Prioritisation of core strands of the curriculum (e.g., place value and number)  · 1:1 or small group teaching with an adult  · Teaching and learning content from a lower year  · My Plan targets to reflect next steps within Maths Teachers collaborate with the SEN team to determine the best provision for the needs of the child. This provision will then be shared with parents

Minch Maths EYFS/Nursery 

In Early Years the children learn new concepts and embed their knowledge through both discrete teaching sessions and through their play when they are accessing provision. EYFS Mathematics is addressed through a combination of adult led activities, small group activities, independent group activities and child-initiated play.

This is then supported by discrete maths sessions through the week (Maths Mat). The learning environment has number representations throughout so that children are reinforcing skills and knowledge throughout the day.

Y3/4 Exploring measurements

Y2 Exploring Capacity

Y5/6 Having fun with Barvember challenges

What our pupils say:

“I also like the fact that I get to go as far as I want in Maths when I am interested in an area.”

“I like five. I really like that number and I am five and the number five is everywhere. Three and two make five and four and one make five.”

“In maths the thing I’m most proud of is improving my problem solving skills.  When we first started doing Barvembers I found them very challenging but towards the end they got easier  and that didn’t just make Barvembers easier it made doing any problems easier because I learnt  different ways of using a bar model for problems.”

“I am enjoying being challenged in Maths this year as it makes it much more fun. I have loved the numbers to zero game as it makes you think and your brain fizz!”

“I like maths—I really like it.  I’m quite fascinated by it.  I’ve definitely found telling the time hard…until now.  I always thought I’d get it, but didn’t. This year I’d given up hope but it’s finally clicked.”

“I like maths because sometimes the problems are really hard. I don’t like easy questions because that makes me bored.”

“I love it being difficult….I like solving the barvembers..”

“I just like maths overall- like harder stuff but also like helping people. I prepare maths buddy work at home.”

“I like doing skills cards because I like achieving stuff. I’m very competitive.”

“Good to be able to talk through my maths…and to have the talk partner there in case you don’t understand or need to talk the thing through.”

“I like twist its and explore it’s because they are challenging.”

“I like maths buddies – helping younger children with things like their times tables. It’s difficult cos need to challenge yourself to work out how to teach it. Have found it especially hard teaching division. I try to recap myself, my understanding and how I learnt it and then think through how I will teach it. I had to break down the steps. We can do it our own way including having board games in the week and skills practice at other times. It helped my learning- I think I understand it better myself now.”

“I am enjoying it…fractions was fun….we learn songs, hinge questions can be challenging—these are basically multi-choice questions with traps to fall into. It shows the teacher why pupils are struggling. Gecko maths can be challenging—especially when you work in a group with less confident mathematicians… but I like doing this.”

“Sometimes I sit there feeling I know this… this more gives me confidence but sometimes I can get a bit bored. Usually there is a challenge in every lesson—really enjoy ‘twist its’ and ‘explore its’ because you can keep going and explore….but also nice feeling you can do it with a do it before going on the more challenging stuff.”

“In Maths – Do it, Twist it and Explore it. We get to explore solutions for problems and therefore we get to find something out for ourselves rather than being told it. It is much better. I like working with a talk partner.”

“I have struggled with Maths and find it difficult when someone just tells me. I have to be able to learn it myself in my way so I feel more comfortable.”