At Nancealverne we believe maths to be a key life skill that supports pupils throughout their daily lives, both at school and in the future. We aim to build all pupils’ skills in the fundamentals of maths, their fluency and ability to reason and problem solve, preparing them well for each next step on their journey, whether to the next Key Stage or onward into adulthood.

Through a mastery approach, our maths offer ensures that all pupils have access to high quality teaching and learning of mathematics that encourages pupils to fully embed developed skills in their long term memory, use the key vocabulary obtained appropriately and apply their learnt skills to solve problems within their everyday lives with greater confidence/ fluency.

Maths learning encompasses 3 main areas: number (including operations), measurement (including time and money) and Geometry, with an additional focus on financial understanding.

Maths is delivered both in discrete lessons throughout the week and across each day, with all staff taking pains to ensure that opportunities for maths learning are maximised (both within structured and unstructured sessions).

Maths teaching begins informally, through play, in our EYFS group, becoming more formal as we progress through the key stages. Maths is delivered as a core subject from KS1-KS4, underpinned through a mastery approach, with opportunities to gain formal qualifications (e.g. Asdan and OCR Functional Skills) in KS5, as well as developing students’ preparedness for adulthood through application of skills to increasingly complex real-life situations.

Teaching and learning is highly personalised with individual pupil starting points taken into account and use of learning pathways to support progress. These pathways start with pre-formal learners (on our learning to learn pathway), who are taught holistically, moving through a semiformal pathway (with a focus on multi-sensory play, games and rhymes/songs), to formal curriculum pathways (ready to learn) with discrete curriculum sessions.

Within the formal pathways, all new learning begins with use and exploration of concrete resources (e.g. Numicon, Diennes blocks, shapes), moving to pictorial representations and structures (e.g. 10s frames, number lines, models and images), towards abstraction. This sequence is fluid and teaching moves between concrete, pictorial and abstract throughout teaching sessions and units of work, ensuring that pupils are supported and learning is scaffolded to ensure maximum progress and challenge.

There is a focus on practical, engaging and fun lessons where pupils are encouraged to talk and share ideas and to focus on use of mathematical vocabulary to explain their work and to reason and explain. Varied contexts are explored, taking into account pupils’ interests and use of real-life scenarios and opportunities.