Our Maths Philosophy

At Rounds Green we believe that every child can be a confident mathematician and our aim is to inspire children by giving them a lively sense of interest and enjoyment in mathematics, with an understanding of its practical and creative use in everyday life.

Our approach to teaching mathematics is based on the maths mastery model; this style of maths teaching aims at encouraging pupils to master concepts and skills through exploration, clarification, practice and application over time. Maths mastery means that pupils develop a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject, mastering each topic securely and being able to build on and apply previous learning to new, more advanced concepts.

The National Curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

-become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately

-reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language

-can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions

The teaching of maths at Rounds Green supports this by providing opportunities for children to further their experiences through the acts of reasoning, organising, explaining and predicting in order to make sense of maths in the real world. Children are given the experience to think logically and deal with abstract concepts and skills that are then used across the whole curriculum. Children are able to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding by being provided with the opportunity to use and apply the skills and knowledge that they have gained. 

Fluency is achieved through the frequent opportunity to rehearse number facts, the modelling and discussion of strategies and providing a range of contexts to which learning can be applied.  Through this, our children will become accurate and efficient in their calculating, gain the ability to demonstrate that they are flexible thinkers, being comfortable with more than one approach and calculating method when working, and achieve a well-developed sense of number. 

Ways to support your child with their maths- Summer Term '21

To support our delivery of maths mastery, there will be a whole school focus this term on ‘Arithmetical Proficiency.’ 

Arithmetical proficiency is an appreciation of number and number operations, which enables mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately.  It requires a good understanding of the key principles that underpin arithmetic procedures, including the quick recall of key number facts and having fluent computational skills.  This means that a child who has good arithmetical proficiency is not only secure with their number bonds and times tables facts but is also able to use their knowledge of number to calculate efficiently, flexibly and accurately.

Examples of Strategies

An example of this is being able to partition 6 into 2 and 4 when adding 8 to 6. 

                                        8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4

If children are secure with their number bonds to 10, they will know that 8 + 2 = 10 then add 4 to make 14.  This makes the calculation easier and quicker, especially when completing it mentally. 

A second example would be to use your knowledge of 12 x 12 = 144 to find 13 x 12.  A child who has secure number knowledge will be able to add one more lot of 12 to 144 to find the answer. 

                                    13 x 12 = 12 x 12 + 1 x 12

Strategies such as these will be modelled by teachers throughout the term.

How to help at home

Having the basic facts to support these strategies is crucial for every child though.  Here are some ways to help and support your child:

1. spend ten minutes each day on Numberbots (Key Stage One) and TT Rockstars (Key Stage Two)
2. practise counting in steps of different numbers (such as 2s, 5s, 3s and 4s), count up and down saying only the even numbers or odd numbers or by saying one number out loud and saying the next one in your head
3. accessing other websites such as Topmarks and Primary Games Arena

It’s amazing how much difference just ten minutes a day can make to a child’s number confidence and ability.