Maths

At Palm Bay we teach Maths following the principles of Maths Mastery, aiming to provide children with the knowledge and strategies required to give them confidence in Maths. Our planning is based on schemes of learning from White Rose Maths, more information about these schemes as well as resources for parents can be found here- https://whiterosemaths.com/ 

Palm Bay incorporates the 5 Big Ideas of Maths Mastery into our planning and teaching-

1. Coherence, children being taught concepts in small, logical steps applied to a range of concepts.

2. Representations and structure; based on CPA progression (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract).

3. Mathematical thinking, realised through regular discussions and questions designed to deepen understanding.

4. Fluency; children being encouraged to learn, recall and identify facts and procedures in a variety of contexts.

5. Variation; both conceptual and procedural, with teachers encouraging children to explore the connections.

Children’s learning begins in EYFS, working on a strong number foundation and exploring maths through patterns and connections, often in real life contexts alongside more formal teaching. In KS1 and KS2 pupils have a daily Maths lesson of 1 hour the lesson is split into 5 parts to encourage lots of opportunities for pupil participation a Do Now as a mental warm up, Star Words to encourage the accurate use of vocabulary, New Learning as input a Talk Task to practice the concept with a partner, Develop Learning to focus on any misconceptions and explore the concept deeper through reasoning questions and finally Independent work.

Children learn best in Maths when they use concrete objects to support their understanding of abstract ideas, so we encourage the use of a wide range of resources or ‘manipulatives’ in Maths lessons, including Numicon, base ten, number beads and counters. From the White Rose Maths scheme we also use lots of pictorial representations to support children’s understanding of concepts. Pupils frequently work in pairs and groups to solve problems as we also know that talking about Maths and ‘how’ they know helps children to develop their understanding.

Throughout the school, pupils enjoy a daily Maths Meeting of 10-15 minutes. This is a short, fun and pacey mental-oral session, in which the children sing and answer questions to develop their mathematical fluency. Maths Meetings cover a wide range of objectives including the calendar, time, weather, data handling, money, pattern and number with topics chosen depending on the need of the year group and class. We use Numbots in EYFS and KS1 and TTRockstars in KS2 to support children with their recall and fluency of number bonds and times tables.

In addition to their regular Maths lessons, we also seek to promote cross-curricular opportunities for Maths learning wherever possible, for example in Outdoor Learning, Science, D.T. and P.E.

Please click on this link to see the Calculation Policy: PB Calculation Policy

For more information, please contact our Maths Leads: Miss Georgina Fox - georginafox@palmbay.uk or Mrs Kim Kirby - kimkirby@palmbay.uk