Mathematics
Mathematics is all around us; it is an important part of the world in which we live and to function in society we need to be able to think and communicate mathematically.
At JKPS, we encourage every student to become a confident and resilient mathematician through a range of engaging and challenging activities, allowing them to develop their understanding of the fundamentals of mathematics. We also encourage children to use technical vocabulary to reason their mathematical thinking.
How we teach maths at JKPS
We revisit number and calculation skills in daily warm-ups to enable
children to embed long term learning of each year group’s mathematical expectations. We follow the White Rose Maths scheme, and we provide a rich mathematical mastery curriculum that is accessible to everyone and insists on challenge for all. Each lesson follows a structure where children develop their fluency before deepening their understanding through challenge, problem-solving and reasoning tasks at all levels.
Concepts are taught using concrete, pictorial and abstract representations (more about these below) to deepen conceptual understanding, whilst allowing faster learners to 'go deeper' before moving onto new concepts.
- Concrete representation — a pupil is first introduced to an idea or skill by acting it out with real objects. This is a ‘hands on’ component using real objects and is a foundation for conceptual understanding.
- Pictorial representation — a pupil has sufficiently understood the ‘hands on’ experiences performed and can now relate them to representations, such as a diagram or picture of the problem.
- Abstract representation — a pupil is now capable of representing problems by using mathematical notation, for example 12 x 2 = 24. It is important that conceptual understanding, supported by the use of representation, is secure for all procedures.
- Reinforcement is achieved by going back and forth between these representations.
Teachers assess learning throughout lessons, responding to children’s needs by addressing misconceptions and providing children with opportunities to consolidate and deepen their learning, including outside the lesson time itself. This ensures that progress for all children is optimised, irrespective of their starting point.
National Curriculum for Mathematics
