Maths at St. Gregory’s

At St. Gregory’s we aim to foster positive attitudes to learning in all areas of Maths. The children’s enjoyment and confidence in this area of the curriculum are crucial for making good progress. Each classroom has a Maths working wall, guidance posters and resources to cater for the needs of all learners. Lessons are tailored to support as well as challenge. Learning focuses on the following key areas: fluency in arithmetic and number facts, reasoning mathematically and problem solving. There are opportunities for cross-curricular learning as well as collaborative learning through our teaching of problem solving. We encourage children and parents to take the initiative to consolidate learning at home as well as explore how Maths can be found everywhere in the real world. With this partnership, we can build on prior knowledge and help the children to achieve their potential in school.

We use Power Maths to help us deliver the National Curriculum through a whole-class mastery approach. Find out more below. 

EYFS

In EYFS our pupils start to develop a strong grounding in number. This is essential so that all our pupils develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children will learn to count confidently as they develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10 as well as the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding - such as using manipulatives - our pupils will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. Our maths curriculum also provides opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures. In addition, it is important that our pupils develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.

KS1

The focus of mathematics teaching in Key Stage 1 is to ensure that our pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value. This involves working with numerals, words and the four operations. At this stage, our pupils will develop their ability to recognise, describe, draw, compare and sort different shapes and use the related vocabulary. Our lessons explore a range of measures to describe and compare different quantities such as length, mass, capacity/volume, time and money. By the end of Year 2, our aim is that our pupils know the number bonds to 20 and our precise in using and understanding place value. An emphasis on practice at this early stage aids fluency. 

LKS2

In Lower Key Stage 2 we work to ensure that pupils become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and the concept of place value. This ensures that our pupils develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers. At this stage, our pupils develop their ability to solve a range of problems, including those with simple fractions and decimal place value. Our lessons aim to ensure that pupils draw with increasing accuracy and develop mathematical reasoning so they can analyse shapes and their properties, and confidently describe the relationships between them. We also ensure our pupils use measuring instruments (with accuracy) and make connections between measure and number. By the end of Year 4, our pupils should have memorised their multiplication tables up to and including the 12 multiplication table and show precision and fluency in their work. We encourage the use of Times Tables Rockstars with all of our pupils. 

UKS2

Pupils will extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger integers. They develop connections between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio. At this stage, our pupils should develop their ability to solve a wider range of problems, including increasingly complex properties of numbers and arithmetic, and problems demanding efficient written and mental methods of calculation. With their foundation in arithmetic, our pupils are introduced to the language of algebra as a means for solving a variety of problems. Teaching in geometry and measures consolidates and extends knowledge developed in number. By the end of Year 6, our pupils should be fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division, and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages.