Maths

A flourishing mathematician at The Ridge has a fluent and conceptual understanding of key ideas and areas of Maths and can use this understanding to apply and reason in a variety of context. They can make links in their learning and can use their knowledge of number to address misconceptions and errors.

This is accomplished in a range of ways

• Children are taught Maths every day and are taught to meet Age Related Expectations for each year group outlined on the National Curriculum Program of Study.
• Children are taught so that they are can truly understand the concept behind what they are learning about, using concrete materials and pictorial representations to represent their understanding before moving onto abstract procedures.
• Children are encouraged to prove their understanding in different ways and understand that concrete and pictorial methods are a way of explaining their understanding in different ways as well as using mathematical vocabulary
• Units of Maths are not confined to set lessons but instead may run continuously over the week’s learning, meaning all children have the opportunity to experience application and reasoning activities.
• Open questioning and prompting from staff ensures children have the opportunity to explain their understanding and the choices they have made in their Mathematics
• Mathematical discussion between children is encouraged in order to promote better explanation and reasoning skills
• Children are expected to be able to fluently recall their multiplication facts up to 12 x 12 by the end of Year 4 and have the opportunity to apply these facts to variations of the numbers e.g. decimals and multiples of 10.
• Whole school investigation weeks are organised throughout the year where children can reason and investigate with children of different ages and to be curious about number and patterns. As well as this, a whole school STEM week occurs annually for children to see real life applications of their Maths and meeting role models who work in the STEM industry.
• Children are encouraged to make links both throughout Maths but also with other subjects.
• Misconceptions are identified by staff and children are given opportunities to realise their own errors and misunderstandings through questioning and proving opportunities rather than being told.
• Children are introduced to the Mathematician that created different concepts that they are studying including the where and when of the concept in order to have a wider understanding of Maths in the world.
• Self-Marking allows for children to see mistakes as an opportunity to discover their error and learn from it before moving on and allows for misunderstandings to be shown quickly in the lesson.

By doing this, we will ensure that our children

• Have fluent recall of number facts and number systems and can make connections between them
• Can show initiative in problem solving and reasoning in a range of contexts along with and can explain their understanding and choices
• Have the ability to persevere and are resilient in their learning, knowing that an error is just an opportunity to learn
• Are enthusiastic and passionate about Maths

Please click on the link below to see the Whole School Overview for Maths (please note there will be some flexibility on timings)

Whole School Maths Overview

Here are just a few of some of the wonderful bits of Maths happening in the school.