Maths

Maths

Intent

At West Wycombe, we make sure that our students develop a life-long love of Maths. Mathematics is an important creative discipline that helps us to understand and change the World. We want all pupils at West Wycombe to experience the beauty, power and enjoyment of mathematics and develop a sense of curiosity about the subject.

At West Wycombe, we foster a growth mindset attitudes and believe that everyone can learn and achieve in mathematics and teach for secure and deep understanding of concepts. We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning and provide challenge through rich and sophisticated problems before acceleration through new content. Our children are proud of our school values and discussed how they show these within our Maths lessons. They think they show these by: working hard; never giving up; looking after equipment; helping someone who is struggling; saying if we are stuck; not copying each other’s work; encouraging each other; have belief in ourselves; and being happy that we can learn from our mistakes.

Implementation

At West Wycombe, Maths is taught in classes. We have a Maths lesson each day with covers the small steps children need in order to progress in their learning.

• Staff use White Rose Maths as a starting point in order to develop a coherent and comprehensive conceptual pathway through the mathematics. The focus is on the whole class progressing together.  
• Learning is broken down into small, connected steps, building from what pupils already know.
• Difficult points and potential misconceptions are identified in advance and strategies to address them planned.
• Key questions are planned, to challenge thinking and develop learning for all pupils.
• Contexts and representations and resources are carefully chosen to develop reasoning skills and to help pupils link concrete ideas to abstract mathematical concepts.
• The use of high quality materials and tasks to support learning and provide access to the mathematics, is integrated into lessons.

In a typical lesson, teachers use Flashback 4 questions to review prior learning. Children follow steps to success to show them how to achieve in their learning. Teachers scaffold and challenge work appropriately to the needs of the learners in their class. When the children have completed their independent work, they are given opportunities to self-mark and correct any misconceptions they have come across. All children are encouraged to reflect on their learning and think about their next steps.

Children are assessed regularly using formative and summative assessments. Teachers use their formative assessments to plan the next steps in learning for their class. Each term, children take a PiXL assessment to show how their learning has progressed. Analysis of these helps teachers to plan the next stages in the learning for their class.

Impact

As a result of maths teaching at West Wycombe School, our pupils:

• enjoy and are engaged in lessons;
• take an active role in their learning;
• demonstrate resilience when attempting to solve problems, and are able to choose the equipment and strategies they think are best suited to each problem;
• develop skills in being able to reason verbally, pictorially and in written form;
• are confident talking about maths using appropriate mathematical vocabulary;
• can recognise relationships and make connections in maths lessons;
• demonstrate mastery of mathematical concepts or skills through independently applying concepts to new problems in unfamiliar situations;
• achieve high outcomes in maths at the end of Key Stage 2.

In the 2022 statutory assessments at the end of Key Stage 2, 79.2% of our Year 6 pupils achieved Expected standard in maths and 33% achieved Greater Depth standard. We have set ambitious targets for the 2023 outcomes in maths at the end of Key Stage 2. We are aiming for 82% of our Year 6 pupils to achieve Expected standard in maths and 32% to achieve Greater Depth standard. 

Useful Links

Sumdog

Sumdog is an interactive learning platform that helps the children practise their Maths skills whilst playing un and engaging games. Each child has a log in and we give prizes for the children who answer the most questions in a week.

Page last updated: 04/04/23