Maths

Maths

Maths at St John's

Mathematics is an essential part of a balanced curriculum that is both well matched and challenging to all learners’ needs. At St John the Baptist the teaching of basic mathematical skills from the earliest opportunity is essential in our context. We believe all learners should be fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, being able to reason mathematically and solve problems by the application of their mathematical understanding. We endeavour to ensure that children develop an enthusiastic and creative attitude towards mathematics that will stay with them throughout their lives, ready to apply their mathematical skills to everyday life and be confident to do so.

We adapt our maths teaching from the White Rose Maths resources. This helps children break down concepts into small steps, leading to them having a deeper understanding of mathematics.

Mathematical concepts are introduced from nursery. Throughout our EYFS provision children are taught to count, sort, recognise numerals and begin to use early mathematical vocabulary of addition and subtraction. We want children to develop an early love and maths and build their resilience.

Throughout KS1 and KS2, children are introduced to the 4 operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This begins practically so children understand visually what these operations mean and look like. Following this, they can apply this knowledge to pictorial representations of number and operations. Children then begin written recording of their work and learn more formal methods of calculations.

It is important for children to be fluent in their maths. To help with this, KS1 and KS2 take part in Daily Questions (DQs) to help with retrieval and fluency. Problem Solving and Reasoning (PSR) is also embedded in our maths curriculum to support with application of knowledge.

What can I do to help at home?

Early Years

Play lots of counting games at home with your children, sing number rhymes and songs. Lots of these can be found on the BBC website. Count trees, cars, people when you are out and about. Count the number of steps when they go up to bed. Make maths real to your child; when you are cooking tea, help them to count out the right number or plates for the number of people in the house. Help your child to recognise the digits 0-9 at home and when you are out.

KS1

At this stage, children still need that practical, play based approach to maths and again, resources can be found on the BBC website. Practice writing the numbers 1-20 to begin with and work on moving up to numbers to 100 by the end of Y1. By the end of Y2, children should be able to count on from 0 in multiples of 2, 5, 10 and 3. Any activities that involve addition and subtraction are helpful; for example, when you are shopping ask your child to help you work out how many more/fewer items you need.

KS2

It is important that by the end of Year 4, children can quickly recall all the times tables up to 12x12, and that they continue to practice these throughout the rest of KS2. They need to be able to recite them in order as well as being able to answer random questions. Again, making maths real to them and helping them to see maths as a real life skill, ask your child to help you solve problems involving maths. There are lots of games they can play to apply their knowledge on the BBC website.

The following document will show you how each of the 4 operations is taught throughout school and the maths vocabulary they will be taught in each year group.