Maths
The Winslow Church of England School Maths vision
Clarity
- From Years Reception to 6, planning overviews follow ‘White Rose Mastery Overviews – term by term’ as closely as possible, employing their Premium Resources and End of Unit/Term assessments. Currently, KS1 are following the Mastering Number Scheme from NCETM.
- To ensure a broader, richer, deeper experience for more-able pupils, problems are given in a range of styles: unfamiliar contexts, White Rose, requiring the application of a number of Maths strands, a range of representations, multi-step problems.
- Planning and teaching is informed by the principle ‘Concrete to visual/pictorial to abstract’. Teachers use a range of concrete and visual resources when developing concepts.
- Teachers increasingly use new teaching methods being imported from other successful education. Teachers use the NCETM website as a major way to access these and other new ideas.
- Guided group work is used as a way to develop in-depth dialogue with groups of pupils with a similar learning need. Children making slow progress, or those falling below the expected level, are involved more frequently in these guided group work activities. (planning informed from previous day’s teaching, therefore it is fluid, or through Cold Tasks).
Talk – improving the quality of talk
- All children have regular opportunities to explain their reasoning verbally, in full (STEM) sentences, using correct vocabulary. Children are taught systematically to talk about Mathematics. Teachers use a range of strategies to ensure this including: lolly sticks, planned questions and rigorous talk partner activities.
- Sentence starters are on display in all classrooms to support children in developing their verbal reasoning. The use of the these is regularly modelled by teachers and support staff.
- Dialogues are created in Maths lessons so that the children learn to listen to one another (Basketball: teacher à child à child, or Ping Pong: teacheràchildàteacher…)
- Children change who they sit with in Maths lessons on a regular basis to ensure that they have opportunities to discuss Maths with a wide range of other children. Children are sat in mixed ability pairs, determined by the lolly sticks, unless behaviour determines otherwise.
- Children are able to verbalise personal areas of development within their current learning.
Learning to learn
- Planning incorporates three strands of differentiation (Chilli Challenges): ‘Hard’, ‘Harder’, ‘Hardest’, (as well as an extension challenge)’. Children (mostly in KS2) are trained to self-differentiate to take ownership of their learning.
- It is the children’s ‘job’ to learn Mathematics. Teaching promotes independence and responsibility. Using the ‘Five Bs’ of Brain, Boards, Book, Buddy and Boss, and ideas about Growth Mindsets.
- The learning environment supports and stimulates current learning in Mathematics including a working wall, and jotters (Y2+). In particular children can find things that will help them with current work when they are stuck (ie flip chart work, which is photographed and shared with parents on Dojo). Children are trained to use their learning environment and concrete resources.
Marking
- The classroom culture is about developing understanding, uncovering errors and misconceptions, and discussing methods, strategies and techniques. Children are encouraged to view uncovering errors and misconceptions as key opportunities to learn (Growth Mindset).
- Children read and respond to marking (in green pen – KS2) and find this process helpful as they engage with the next steps in their learning.
- In KS1, pink and green highlighting and verbal feedback allow live marking, and SDI.
- In KS2, peer and self-assessment are a form of marking, however – even when this takes place – teachers acknowledge that it has been looked at through use of marking policy symbols ‘LOA’ (Learning Objective Achieved), WT (Working Towards), ‘V’ (Verbally marked/discussed with child), P+, P=, P- or ‘SDI’ (Same Day Intervention used) against the LO, so that children feel their work is valued.
- Children reflect on their progress and understanding at the end of every lesson by ‘traffic lighting’ next to the LO. Teachers will mark the books of children self-assessing as red first, following up with SDI at a later point.
- Next steps that require a response from pupils are given at least once a week. Time is given for them to be completed the next day (in green pen, most likely at the start of the lesson) and the responses are acknowledged by the class teacher.
Long term focus
- Teachers know which pupils are making slow progress and/or are falling below expectations. They have well defined strategies, through which they are seeking to accelerate their learning.
- More-able pupils, who have already mastered or quickly mastered the expected level within a unit of work, are provided with opportunities to broaden, enrich and deepen their knowledge. Time is not wasted revisiting ‘easy’ work and Cold Tasks are used to pitch tasks accurately.
- Key concepts are constantly revisited and revised by all abilities to ensure solid foundations of knowledge and skills (Flashback PPTs from WRMH, morning activities and fluency tasks).
- We aim for Mastery learning at the expected level for all children in Mathematics. Learning for all that is sustained over time. For higher attaining children, we aim to provide a broader, richer and deeper experience of the work that others are doing.
- Teaching assistants have effective learning conversations in all phases of lessons with individuals, pairs and groups. Teaching assistants work with children from across the attainment spectrum, where possible, using their marking pyramids.
- Teachers support children in developing links across and within the Mathematics curriculum, to assist children with recall and developing deeper understanding.
- All children have regular opportunities to engage with open and rich Mathematical activities, including investigations and the use of CPA.
Planning
- Flashback materials used before the lesson.
- Teachers will use a learning objective from the White Rose Maths Hub Small Steps and the NCETM Spines.
- Teachers may include Steps to Success (through workings on the flip chart). These will be step-by-step instructions needed in order to achieve the LO.
- Teachers will include suitable questions to discuss and solve with the children in the introduction. The flip chart might be used to record workings and S2S for the Working Wall. Photos of flip chart pages posted on Dojo so parents can help with home-learning.
- Teachers will differentiate the children’s work 3 ways. Challenge will be evident for each ability group.
- Differentiation is not making the numbers bigger. An extension challenge will be available for those who need it. A mixture of Fluency, Reasoning and Problem-Solving will be evident throughout a unit of planning, with every child accessing Reasoning every day.
- There will be opportunities for Talk Partner work every day (such as Odd One Out, Always Sometimes Never, Ping Pong, Basketball and discussion during the Introduction, Independent Task or Plenary).
- When marking and/or working with children during the lesson, teachers identify pupils for whom ‘Same Day Interventions’ would be beneficial. These interventions consist of 5 minutes of 1:1 time (ideally in the lesson, if not then in the afternoon), with either the teacher or an LSA. This work is recorded in pupils’ Maths books.
- LSAs and teachers use a range of concrete and visual resources when developing concepts, especially drawings, such as Bar Models and Part-Part-Whole.
- Teachers increasingly use new teaching methods from successful educational systems, such as NCETM and WRMH, including procedural and conceptual variation, and the other NCETM 5 Big Ideas.