Mathematics

Our Vision for Mathematics at Parklandsmaths.jpg

At Parklands, we recognise that mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that is essential to everyday life. We aim to provide a high-quality mathematics education that provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

Aims and Objectives

The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
  • reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
  • can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

Teaching and Learning

As a school, we have adopted Power Maths. This whole class, mastery programme has been embedded from Reception to Year 6  to immerse children in mathematical concepts which they are taught to master. The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, decisions about when to progress are always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly are challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material  consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on. Use of stage and age manipulatives are used for all pupils to build solid foundations on which children can apply more difficult concepts and through the scheme of work, conceptual variation (the opportunity to work on different representations of the same mathematical idea) is ensured.

In reception and years 1 and 2, pupils receive an additional 15 minute ‘mastering number’ session in addition to their maths lesson. They use manipulatives to develop their understanding of number and are building on solid foundations on which they can progress. In key stage 2, arithmetic sessions are taught weekly to ensure that pupils are able to develop their efficiency  and speed when calculating. Pupils are also given regular opportunities to recall number facts and times tables.