Vision for Mathematics

Mathematics is an important creative discipline that helps us to understand and change the world.  We want all pupils at St James’ C of E Junior School to experience the beauty, power and enjoyment of mathematics and develop a sense of curiosity about the subject.

At St James’ Church of England Junior School, we foster positive ‘can do’ attitudes, believe all children can achieve in mathematics, and teach for secure and deep understanding of mathematical concepts. We use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning and provide challenge through rich and sophisticated problems before acceleration through new content.

In order to provide this we have identified the following curriculum drivers:-

Oracy - Children at St James’ often join the school with English as an additional language and /or with poor language acquisition. Children will be encouraged to discuss their ideas – Why do you think that? How do you know? Explain your thoughts, and to use sentence stems when answering questions. Maths vocabulary will be explicitly explained, displayed and used accurately by teachers and pupils.

Initiative - Children are encourage to have a ‘Have a go’ attitude and that the view mistakes as a leaning opportunity. Each class has an Access to Learning area which the children can use at their own choice to help them with their learning and problem solving. Children are encourage to be independent learners; to help themselves, to identify their own targets and areas they need to work on, and to edit their own work.

Futures - Maths is a central part of everyday life as well as working life. As well as teaching the basics of time, money and number to ensure they can be independent, self-sufficient adults, we also want to install a love of maths and share the opportunities that are open to them in the future through visitors to school and trips,

Opening doors to the world - we link our teaching to the real world. Our pupils need to see how their learning is relevant to their lives and future. We want our children to be productive, valuable members of society and therefore they need the skills and knowledge equal to their peers to access employment. We want the children to believe that they can aspire to be anything they want but our children do not know about the opportunities the world can offer them, so we will expose them to as many as possible and give them the skills to access them from booking a holiday to carpeting a house, from planning a bus trip to comparing discount in the sales.

Wellbeing - Maths is fun, interesting, puzzling and intriguing. We want all children to feel that they are valued, successful and are enthused.  Our curriculum and lesson design ensures all children work together through the objectives but with support and challenge where needed. Pupils with SEND have an individual learning plan which ensure that they make progress and feel successful at their own level.

Curriculum Intent: Our children need the skills and experiences in order to access the same opportunities and experiences as their peers in the future.

We aim for all pupils to:

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics (see Year by Year Curriculum Maps) so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. (Futures, Oracy, Opening doors, Initiative)
• Solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios. Opening doors to the World, Initiative, Futures, Oracy)
• Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language. (Oracy, Initiative, Futures)
• Have an appreciation of number and number operations, which enables mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately. (Futures, Initiative, Opening doors to the world).