Maths

Mathematics at Gateway Primary School

Mathematics at Gateway Primary School is an essential part of a balanced and broad curriculum that is both challenging and enjoyable. Our expectation is that all learners should become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics through varied and frequent practice and should be able to reason mathematically and solve problems by the application of their mathematical understanding. At Gateway, we follow the White Rose Scheme of Learning, ensuring that teaching is cyclical and builds on small manageable steps in order to help children understand the overall concepts. When introducing new concepts, we use concrete, pictorial and abstract approaches in order to embed a deeper understanding. We are developing a mastery approach to teaching and learning within mathematics at Gateway and aim to encourage our children to not only think mathematically but talk mathematically in order to develop their ability to articulate, discuss and explain using precise vocabulary. As a school, we endeavour to ensure that every child develops an enthusiastic and creative attitude towards mathematics that will develop their habits of thinking mathematically later on in life.

Mathematics offers children an opportunity to:  

• Help children make sense of the numbers, patterns and shapes they see in the world around them, offers ways of handling data in an increasingly digital world and makes a crucial contribution to their development as a successful learner.
• Explore mathematical problems that sometimes leads them to unexpected discoveries or new connections within the subject and beyond.
• A new way of communicating using their mathematical thinking and language.
• Explore concepts, skills and thinking strategies that are essential in everyday life and support learning across the curriculum.
• Receive teaching that stimulates curiosity, creativity and equips children with the skills they need to be successful in later life.

Mathematic lessons at Gateway allow children to:

• Become competent and independent mathematicians through gaining a deeper understanding of the concepts being taught.
• Have the opportunity to revisit and reflect on mathematics they have learned previously which they can build on.
• Use a wide range of mathematical manipulatives to show their workings in a concrete fashion, before establishing ways of pictorially and formally representation their understanding.
• Have opportunities to solving rich mathematical problems and investigations.
• Have opportunities in every lesson to discuss their mathematical ideas and problems with each other.
• Self-evaluate their own progress and identify their own misconceptions through the use of live-marking and verbal feedback.
• Develop a positive mindset towards mathematics that will encourage their enthusiasm and curiosity.

Key Stage 1:

Ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value.

Lower Key Stage 2:

Ensure pupils become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and the concept of place value. In this way, we ensure that pupils develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers.

Upper Key Stage 2:

Ensure that pupils extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger integers. This enables them to make connections between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio.