Mathematics at Harrow Gate Primary Academy
At Harrow Gate Primary Academy, we teach Maths using the Mastery approach.
This involves most children moving through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace unless a personalised curriculum is needed. We believe that all children can achieve therefore all children are given the same starting point in lessons. Children who may be less confident with a concept are given support or interventions, and children who have grasped concepts rapidly will be challenged by depth of understanding, not acceleration. Through Maths Talk and mixed grouping, all children are able to be immersed in the vocabulary rich environment necessary for effective problem solving and reasoning.
Our Maths units are embedded with the three main aims of the curriculum: fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Once children have gained fluency in a subject area, they are given further time to reason with their understanding and develop this with problem solving situations. Maths concepts are introduced through many different structures and representations to allow depth of understanding for the children.
Lessons involve using a mixture of concrete, pictorial and abstract approaches in order to make connections and expose the underlying structure of the mathematics.
To fully master a subject, we also believe children should be able to explain their thinking and reasoning and confidently teach others. Use of language is therefore a major feature of all Maths lessons as it develops children’s reasoning and explanation.
In addition, embedded in the Maths daily classroom routines, previous learning is revisited in DNA activity designed to recall previous learning from last lesson / last week / last unit / last year. This is used to keep learning fresh and gives the opportunity for interleaving to cover some less frequently taught units. In Upper Team, daily Mini-Maths promotes our strength in Mathematical arithmetic and fluency.
Maths is given a high profile in Harrow Gate and is given purpose and audience at every given opportunity. Through opportunities in cross-curricular subjects through to everyday living, Maths is made and taught explicitly. When in the classrooms you will hear a vocabulary rich environment where children are confident, not only to answer given questions, but to challenge explanations in reasoning situations using a high level of vocabulary. Every classroom has a Maths working wall and resource area which is accessed freely and independently by all children.
HGPA Mathematics Policy |