Great Denham Primary

Maths

Maths is taught daily at Great Denham. Our Maths team is led by Mrs Plant, Mrs Borner and supported by Mrs Dilley.

Maths at Great Denham is focussed on the three aims of the 2014 National Curriculum so that our children:

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics and are able to recall and apply knowledge readily and accurately
• Can reason mathematically so they can follow a line of enquiry, seek patterns and explain their thinking and findings using mathematical language
• Can solve problems by applying their knowledge, breaking down problems into simple steps and persevering when finding solutions

Each week, children will take part in four sessions of ‘Magic Maths’ where counting, number and mental arithmetic strategies will be taught and rehearsed in order to improve children’s fluency in number. Children will also take part in daily maths lessons within their class which cover each of the different strands of the maths curriculum.

At Great Denham, we are passionate that teaching and learning in maths is based on a sound mathematical understanding, rather than simply being taught as a series of memorised methods that are carried out without a real, in-depth understanding of the concept.

As a school, we use the ‘Concrete Pictorial Abstract’ approach where each new mathematical concept taught is learned first with a ‘concrete’ or physical experience e.g. mathematical apparatus. This is followed by the seeing stage using ‘pictorial’ representations e.g. diagrams, drawings or models. This stage encourages children to make mental connections between the physical concept and abstract levels of understanding. Only when the children have grasped the concept at this level, will they move on to the ‘abstract’ or symbolic stage where they are able to use abstract symbols to solve problems e.g. a written method for multiplication using the ‘x’ symbol.

In reception, the children will build up their Magic Maths sessions throughout the year. In the Autumn term, counting and number sessions are introduced. In the Spring term, a main maths session is introduced and by the Summer term, a reasoning session is added to their weekly maths diet.

Our long term plan for Maths can be found for each year group on their year group page.