Maths at St Anne's

Maths is part of everyday life, from using money and telling the time to working out complicated mathematical problems within pieces of work. Mathematical concepts are all around us and we encourage children to apply their maths skills each day in and out of the actual maths lessons and within the wider curriculum of the school. From our foundation stage children using their maths skills to problem solve in the outdoor area to Year 6 applying their knowledge of fractional parts of a beat when composing body percussion pieces..

At St Anne's we ensure that our mathematics curriculum fully embraces the three key areas of the national curriculum fluency, reasoning and problem solving. We endeavour to bring maths to life for young children by using a simple teaching approach of  'Say it,' 'Build it,' 'Draw it' and 'Write it'.

These four ways of demonstrating different mathematical concepts enable children to visualise maths and make sense of the numbers on a page so that their understanding moves from concrete to pictorial and then abstract. We use 'working walls' in each class to help remind children of the four teaching approaches and these displays are integral to the delivery of the teaching.

We firmly believe on an emphasis on talk to help children secure knowledge and consolidate their thoughts. In turn this helps the development of skilled and curious mathematicians who can make conjectures and generalisations to prove their understanding.

We base our sequence of learning on the materials produced by White Rose. This provides a structure for each teacher to build their own mathematical teaching around. However, we understand that children are individuals and acquire knowledge, understanding and skills at different rates and in different ways. Each teacher ensures that the small steps that the children take are the right ones for them by adapting materials appropriately and supplementing them with other materials where needed. This is in line with teachers using their professional judgement to tailor learning to what their classes and children need.