It is our aim at Armley Park Primary School that all children should feel confident and enthusiastic about maths and enjoy their mathematics learning. In maths lessons, children are taught a range of strategies to develop their mathematical fluency and calculation skills. A mastery approach is adopted by the school so that children are able to apply their knowledge to use mathematical reasoning and solve challenging problems.
We follow the White Rose Maths Hub scheme of work. This ensures that children work through the curriculum in a way which allows them to build on prior learning effectively. This allows children to make links between different concepts, and leads them to have a deep, long-term understanding of the subject.
It is important that children are confident with their declarative mathematical knowledge. Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) are delivered at the start of each morning and are aligned to the children's cohort (covering objectives from their year group or previous year groups). This takes place during a focused session called Early Bird Maths and aims to promote the core recall facts needed to succeed within the mathematics curriculum.
To enable children to build on their mathematical knowledge and to ensure taught skills are practised regularly, children revisit concepts through What Did We Learn About sessions. These focused sessions are delivered at the start of the morning (approximately four times a week) during Early Bird Maths. The questions are based on what has been taught that week, what was taught last month and what was taught last term. These sessions focus as a revision of previously taught concepts. What Did We Learn About provides a ‘distance from learning’ opportunity for children to further practise key areas of learning. They are also used as assessment tool by teachers to inform further teaching.
We recognise the importance of keeping children interested in learning fundamental maths skills such as understanding of number and multiplication tables.
We use programs such as Times Tables Rock Stars and Numbots to help with this. Children have opportunities to access these programs during the week at school and we also encourage them to access them at home too. We have a weekly competition for which class has chosen the most effort by collecting the most coins.
If your child does not know their login details for these websites, please speak to the class teacher and they will be able to help.