“ I don’t like Maths, I love it” 

Year 4 pupil from St. James’s Catholic Primary School

Our Approach:

Mathematics helps children make sense of the world around them by developing their ability to calculate, reason and solve problems. It enables children to understand and appreciate relationships and patterns in both number and space in their everyday lives.

► At St James's School, our mathematics curriculum is designed to enable every child to achieve success and develop confidence, enjoyment and curiosity in mathematics. We aim to equip pupils with the mathematical knowledge and skills they need for later life, while fostering a genuine enthusiasm and fascination for the subject.

We follow a Teaching for Mastery approach, ensuring that all children develop a deep and secure understanding of mathematical concepts. Our teaching is underpinned by the Five Big Ideas of Mastery:

• Coherence – learning is carefully sequenced so that new knowledge builds on prior understanding.
• Representation and Structure – mathematical concepts are explored through a range of representations to reveal underlying structures.
• Mathematical Thinking – children are encouraged to reason, explain, conjecture and justify their ideas.
• Fluency – pupils develop speed and accuracy through varied and meaningful practice.
• Variation – conceptual and procedural variation helps children make connections and deepen their understanding.

► Children are encouraged to communicate their mathematical thinking clearly using precise mathematical vocabulary and sentence stems.

Through discussion, collaboration and reasoning, pupils learn to explore ideas, explain strategies and justify their answers. We place a strong emphasis on oracy, supporting children to communicate effectively with one another so that they learn to see, understand and discuss the mathematics rather than simply carry out procedures.

The Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract (CPA) approach is used throughout the school to support deep conceptual understanding. Carefully chosen manipulatives and visual representations help children make connections and develop secure mathematical understanding before moving to more abstract methods.

Our Curriculum: 

Progression of Manipulatives

Children from Year 2 to Year 6 keep a Maths Journal. Within the journal, they can reflect on their learning, be creative in the strategies they use to respond to problems and develop their mathematical reasoning at an even deeper level.   

How is Maths Assessed?

Concept Cards

Each child has a ‘Concept Card’ in the front of their Maths Book. The key concepts covered relate exactly to our Progression of Knowledge and Skills documents for each year group. When a Concept is not achieved, the teacher will highlight the concept. Review tasks and teacher support are put in place to address any concepts that have not been achieved.

Progression of Skills and Knowledge

We use the White Rose Scheme of learning to ensure a consistent approach to delivering the National Curriculum Objectives. Our Progression of Skills and Knowledge documents inform our planning. The National Curriculum objectives are listed in each term and broken down into progressive steps. The objectives are mapped out for progression across the year, following the White Rose Scheme. In Maths lessons, these objectives are broken down further into microscopic steps, reflecting our mastery approach. We ensure that all of our children are secure on a step before moving onto another step.

Enrichment in Maths

► At St James's, we continuously strive to enhance children's enthusiasm, confidence and passion for mathematics by providing a range of exciting enrichment opportunities beyond the classroom.

All year groups participated in Number Day, celebrating mathematics through engaging activities and challenges designed to promote a love of learning and raise the profile of maths across the school.

Children have also represented the school in local Maths Wizard Competitions, with teams from Year 2 and Year 5 working collaboratively to solve mathematical problems and challenges against other local schools.

To encourage greater participation in mathematics and STEM subjects, a group of Year 5 girls attended a STEM enrichment trip to the Royal Institution in London, where they explored the exciting opportunities and careers linked to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

This year, 60 pupils from Years 5 and 6 took part in the Primary Maths Challenge, a national competition organised by The Mathematical Association. The challenge provides children with an opportunity to apply their mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills in a stimulating and enjoyable way.

Year 5 pupils also participated in a specialist workshop delivered by Inside Maths, entitled "Adventures with Shape". In this hands-on workshop, children explored the surprising properties of shapes through practical investigation. They were introduced to concepts from topology, discovered the fascinating effects of drawing shapes on the surface of a sphere and developed problem-solving skills through paper-folding challenges.

In addition, all children in Key Stage 2 have access to Times Tables Rock Stars, an online platform which supports the development of multiplication fluency. Through regular practice, challenges and friendly competition, pupils build confidence and recall of multiplication facts, helping to strengthen their wider mathematical understanding.

Through these enrichment opportunities, we aim to inspire children to view mathematics as a creative, exciting and rewarding subject that extends far beyond the classroom.

Calculations At St. James’s

With the constant changes to the curriculum, it has meant that many parents have found it difficult to keep up with the strategies used for calculation in their children’s year groups.

► At St. James’s, we have developed a calculations overview, which you can find in our Maths policy on the website.

To further assist parents with their understanding of calculation strategies, we have put together some short video clips (thanks to our volunteers!) to support the understanding of the formal methods used for the four operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They are available to watch and will be added to over the course of the year. The children working with a teacher show us how to proceed through the strategies for the four operations using the appropriate mathematical language. We hope you find them useful in supporting your children’s Maths learning.