Intent
The 2014 National Curriculum for Maths aims to ensure that all children:
At Booker Avenue Juniors, these skills are embedded within Maths lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are also able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. We are committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject, as well as an appreciation of the beauty and power of Mathematics.
Implementation
The content and principles underpinning the 2014 Mathematics curriculum and the Power Maths curriculum at Booker reflect those found in high-performing education systems internationally, particularly those of east and south-east Asian countries such as Singapore, Japan, South Korea and China. These principles and features characterise this approach and convey how our curriculum is implemented:
Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support and intervention.
To ensure whole consistency and progression, the school uses the DfE approved ‘Power Maths' scheme. This is fully aligned with the White Rose Maths scheme. New concepts are shared within the context of an initial related problem, which children are able to discuss in partners. This initial problem-solving activity prompts discussion and reasoning, as well as promoting an awareness of maths in relatable real-life contexts that link to other areas of learning. Children may also use concrete resources to help them deepen their understanding. Teachers use careful questions to draw out children’s discussions and their reasoning. The class teacher then leads children through strategies for solving the problem, including those already discussed. Independent work provides the means for all children to develop their fluency further, before progressing to more complex related problems. Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Each lesson phase provides the means to achieve greater depth, with more able children being offered rich and sophisticated problems, as well as exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate.
Impact
The school has a supportive ethos and our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievement of others. Children can underperform in Mathematics because they lack confidence, think they can’t do it or are not naturally good at it. The Power Maths programme addresses these preconceptions by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success in Mathematics by developing a growth mindset. Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child.
Power Maths
Power Maths, recognised by the DfE, is structured around a whole class interactive teaching model that focuses on helping all children to build a deep understanding of maths concepts and confidence in maths.
For each year group, the curriculum strands are broken down into core concepts. These are taught in blocks of lessons giving sufficient time to develop a deep and sustainable understanding of core maths concepts. Each concept is broken down into lessons. Each lesson and concept builds on prior knowledge to help children build a robust and deep understanding of the concept before moving on. Opportunities are provided for same day intervention if necessary and also for deepening activities if pupils master the concept.
Each lesson is divided up into:
Key features of the mastery approach
Teaching resources
Teaching methods
Pupil support and differentiation
Calculation Policies
The calculation policy shows the Power Maths progression in calculation (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and how this works in line with the National Curriculum. This policy shows how the consistent use of the CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract) approach across Power Maths helps children develop mastery in both written and mental methods across all the operations in an efficient and reliable way.