Welcome to the Maths page

Mathematics is essential in everyday life.  It develops the ability to think logically and to order and organise our thoughts.  At Aldwyn, we want to give all children the competence and confidence to use mathematics in everyday situations and to solve problems effectively.  

 The aims of mathematics at Aldwyn are:

• to promote enjoyment and enthusiasm for learning through practical activities, exploration and discussion;
• to promote and develop pupils’ mental maths skills and ensure that these underpin any written strategies that children may learn and use; 
• to promote confidence and competence with numbers and the number system; 
• to develop the ability to solve problems through decision-making and reasoning in a range of contexts;
• to develop a practical understanding of the ways in which information is gathered and presented;
• to explore features of shape and space, and develop measuring skills in a range of contexts;
• to understand the importance of mathematics in everyday life.

Maths Policy:

We base our medium and long term planning in Maths on a scheme developed by White Rose. We supplement this with other planning and lessons that help us support pupils in a more focused way (including NCETM and Mastering the Curriculum).

The policies below show the models and representations we use to help pupils understand the mathematical concepts as they progress through our school. They also have a list vocabulary that go with the concepts.

These policies will help you to understand how Maths is taught at Aldwyn and some of the models and strategies we use. There is also a in-built progression of these methods - moving on from year to year.

One thing we do at Aldwyn, in a series of Maths lessons, is move from concrete to pictoral to more abstract Maths.

Concrete activities use everyday objects or maths equipment to support the children's learning in maths.

Pictorial is the ‘seeing’ stage, using representations of the objects involved in maths problems, by drawing or looking at pictures, circles, diagrams or models which represent the objects in the problem.

Abstract is the ‘symbolic’ stage, where children are able to use more formal written methods to solve calculations.

New for '22 & '23 in Maths.

Aldwyn is part of the Turing North West Maths Hub. This is a five year project and we are now entering year 3. It includes training from expert tutors and mentors plus planning and resources which gives teaching staff a brilliant focus for developing our pupil's learning in Maths.

Part of this is a 'mastery approach'.

We have already implimented two of the five elements of the lesson plans for this:

• a small steps approach which helps pupils make connections to previous learning (coherance).
• using consistent models and representations that help these connections too.

Here is a diagram that helps pull this approach together:

What's Next in Maths:

We are working to embed the other elements of Teaching for Mastery. This includes 'variation'. This is where teaching staff ensure that the way questions are presented draws pupils’ attention to the key learning. This supports pupils in identifying the key features of the concept and addresses misconceptions. One example is when is a quarter a quarter? 

Another focus this year will be to ensure there is a clear progression of representations. If you're not sure what these are, have a look at the policies elsewhere on this page. They give a good idea of what representations are used in which year group. They also have some useful vocabulary (right at the back of the policies) that we use in school.

What we teach in Maths:

We follow the National Curriculum at Aldwyn but the objectives in this are quite large so we break them down into smaller steps. Here are the smaller steps for each year group:

The National Curriculum of mathematics gives a detailed outline of what we teach in the long term and our yearly teaching programme identifies these key objectives. Our medium-term plans are also adopted from the National Curriculum and they ensure there is a balanced coverage of the key objectives. These medium plans allow us to link our teaching to other subjects to create good cross curricular links. Our teaching is also supported from schemes such as Abacus Evolve, White Rose and a variety of other maths resources. 

At Aldwyn a big emphasis is placed on having the ability to work out answers to a problem mentally so all age groups have mental maths lessons where these skills are developed at an appropriate level.   

Maths Activities Online:

You can improve your maths by trying these games and activities at home. Ask your child for the username and password.

Good luck.

Interactive Resources:

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