Maths

At Brookmans Park School we aim for all of our children to become confident mathematicians with a life-long love of learning and problem solving. Our approach ensures that everyone can experience success in the subject whilst being challenged in order to achieve their highest potential.  

Maths is an interconnected subject in which pupils need to be able to move fluently between representations of mathematical ideas and make connections to prior learning. At Brookmans Park School, the three areas of maths (fluency, problem solving and reasoning) are taught through engaging lessons and they are developed consistently and progressively across the school through a spiral curriculum that builds year upon year. This curriculum is broken down into small steps to ensure that learning is consolidated before moving on. We use the Herts for Learning ‘ESSENTIALmaths’ programme as a tool for planning and ensure that each lesson provides the children with opportunities to reason, explain and justify mathematically by using concrete resources alongside carefully chosen pictorial representations. The CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract) approach aims to expose the structure of mathematical concepts and highlight connections which, in turn, develops a much deeper understanding. 

Fluency and rapid recall of number facts is at the core of our maths curriculum and time is dedicated to this before allowing the children to extend and apply this knowledge to a variety of contexts. Rich, mathematical vocabulary is taught consistently as the children journey through the school and the use of this is scaffolded using sentence stems to allow the children to reason accurately. 

In line with our Fast Feedback policy, we encourage the children to reflect on their learning throughout lessons and to learn from their mistakes, celebrating these in order to build resilience. Constant formative assessment is used to inform planning and to respond to children’s needs and curiosities within lessons, enabling them to become inquisitive mathematicians. Long term plans are reordered to coincide with topics where possible and cross-curricular links are used to enhance the curriculum. We are committed to ensuring that what we teach is relevant and purposeful and that it prepares our children for life in the 21st Century. Therefore, regular opportunities for real world maths, including STEM weeks or whole-school celebration days, are provided to encourage children to become passionate and excited about the subject. 

To support learning in maths, we provide our children with a variety of well-planned opportunities:

• Units of work broken down into small steps to ensure enough time is spent on concepts before moving on
• Long term planning adjusted to make cross-curricular links where possible 
• Regular AfL opportunities to inform planning and teaching
• Rapid, precise interventions (including pre-teaching) put in place when necessary 
• Concrete resources used alongside carefully chosen pictorial representations used parallel to abstract, formal methods  
• Fluency and rapid recall of number facts built into lessons and other parts of the school day (e.g. morning work)
• Reasoning and problem solving planned for in all lessons so that concepts can be applied and extended
• Open-ended activities planned to encourage number observancy 
• ‘Check it’ stations used to ensure errors can be addressed quickly 
• Rich mathematical vocabulary and sentence stems used to enhance reasoning 
• Whole school STEM weeks to encourage a love of the subject   
• House challenges to earn house points across the school 
• MyMaths used for online home learning
• Times Tables Rockstars and Numbots used from Year 1-6