At Dunalley, we place great importance on children developing a secure and deep understanding of maths. We strive to create a learning culture where all children believe they can achieve through hard work and determination. Through the use of practical resources, visual representations and quality talk we aim to develop children’s conceptual understanding as a ‘mastery’ approach. Our intention is to nourish children’s mathematical thinking and curiosity so that they can confidently and flexibly, reason and solve problems.
Our planning ensures that all of these elements are incorporated into our units of work. Our medium-term plans support teaching by providing a coherent learning journey through the key stages, focusing on small steps as key learning points. Our maths lessons are divided between intelligent practice which introduces new learning and deliberate practice which consolidates previously taught material. Within our lesson design, children understand that explaining mistakes and misconceptions is an essential part of learning. Teachers use ‘CanDoMaths’ to support lesson planning and to help foster a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards maths. This allows for teaching and consolidation through the planned units of work, ensures a secure and deep understanding and helps children to see maths as an interconnected subject.
We place great importance on securing an understanding of place value, number facts and written algorithms. Our termly plans ensure that children’s procedural fluency is continually developed so that number facts are learnt to automaticity. In addition to this, in EYFS and key stage 1, we are part of the NCETM Mastering Number Programme. Additional programmes such as TTRockstars and Numbots allow children to practise and consolidate number facts.
The National Curriculum provides an outline of core knowledge, skills and understanding around which teachers can develop exciting and stimulating units of work and lessons. Our staff have spent considerable time developing their long-term curriculum maps for their year groups to ensure that the full requirements of the National Curriculum are met.
These subject specific documents outline the content of the curriculum for each year group, across the academic year and provide an excellent insight into what each year group will be teaching.
To access our curriculum progression maps please click on the following links: