Maths

‘The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics.’ - Paul Halmos

Subject Leader - Mr Dunnigan

School Leaders: Ava-May, Jonathan, Ben, Holly, Autumn, Joshua

At St. Robert’s RC First School, our goal is to ensure that all pupils develop the skills and confidence to solve a wide range of problems through fluency with numbers and mathematical reasoning/ problem solving. We strive to instil a love of mathematics in our children, encouraging them to explore, question, and find joy in the mathematical world around them.

What about experiences?

Mathematical experiences are evident throughout the School within practical classroom lessons and further outward reaching experiences with the wider School and local community. Alongside the daily concrete, pictorial, abstract experiences and fluency lessons, pupils are involved in practical, real experiences during mathematic topics.

In EYFS, the pupils use maths as part of their continuous provision, counting when lining up, matching when tidying items, using music and songs that spiral maths into their learning, in their role play areas setting up post offices, shops and more to embed their recognition when ‘buying’ items. Building on this, the use of cross-curricular experiences, involves Year 1-4 pupils engaging in the Royal Horticultural Society Project (RHS) that focuses on developing/creating green spaces in the school environment and documenting this: researching, designing, planning and budgeting for the items that they need then using technology to buy these.

Children actively engage in further work from home, posting their RHS designs on Dojo and frequently sending in their revision videos of KIRFS being undertake at home. The teaching team compliment these experiences with mastery style questions and problems to solve along the way. Cross curricular links are made where these are both possible and powerful. We actively engage in NSPCC Number Rocks days each February along with Times Table Rockstars ‘England Rocks Competitions' and promote Maths as a fun and enriching subject through these experiences.

In key stage 2, the pupils access the wide range of measure resources in the School to estimate, measure and compare capacity, length and mass. They use materials and packaging to read and recognise the different units of measure. This develops into design and technology (food) lessons, in Year 4, where the pupils design, plan, budget, buy and make food items to sell to the wider community. We are greatly appreciative of our KIRFS volunteers, members of our school community, who come to work with our children and boost their attainment of basic mathematical skills.