KS1

At Hatherley Infant School, we foster positive ‘can do’ attitudes, believe all children can achieve in mathematics and teach for secure and deep understanding of mathematical concepts. We use mistakes as an essential part of learning and provide challenge through rich and sophisticated problems before acceleration through new content.

For the children, achieving mastery means acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that has been taught to enable pupils to move on to more advanced material. ‘Mastering’ maths means children acquire a deep, long-term, secure and, most importantly, adaptable understanding of the subject.

At Hatherley Infants, we use Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract (CPA) techniques to ensure children have a deep understanding of the concept.

Teachers use a long term plan to ensure that the entire curriculum (linked below) is covered over the course of a school year. Long term plans are broken down in to area specific ‘S Plans’ which set out the small steps lesson objectives. The planning takes its form in daily PowerPoints which act as a prompt and guide for the children. The sequence of slides is set out below.

In addition, each day children revisit and practise previous knowledge and skills in daily ‘Maths Meeting’.

Questioning is the key to success in all our mathematics sessions and children are always asked to ‘prove it’ and higher order questions in order to develop their mathematical fluency, oracy and vocabulary.

EYFS

The Early Years Foundation stage is guided by the requirements and recommendations set out in the Early Years document ‘Development Matters’ (pg 32 -36). Lessons in the early years also follow the mastery approach and use concrete and pictorial representations to develop an understanding of mathematics. Children are encouraged to use, enjoy, explore, practice and talk confidently about mathematics using reasoning and correct vocabulary. The children are exposed to a variety of problems, use practical resources like Numicon, ten frames and other concrete material to master the key concepts.