Math
At Jessop, we are devoted to ensuring all students enjoy and understand Maths, becoming confident mathematicians. We are committed to actively engaging our students in recognising patterns and formulae that can be transferred across the curriculum and in everyday life. We believe that securing strong foundations with practice, consolidation and exploring ideas, while working to develop mathematical fluency and understanding will enhance critical and independent thinking amongst our students.
When teaching Mathematics at Jessop, we intend to provide a curriculum which caters for the needs of all individuals and sets them up with the necessary skills and knowledge to become successful in their future endeavours. We aim to prepare them for a successful working life by sustaining a level of challenge through varied and high quality activities with a focus on fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Pupils are required to explore Mathematics in depth, using mathematical vocabulary to reason and explain their workings. By justifying their choice of methods and developing their mathematical reasoning skills, pupils are encouraged to demonstrate their understanding in concrete, pictorial and abstract forms wherever possible.
Creating a varied and engaging environment for our students to practise their learning in Mathematics is paramount. Every half term, teachers introduce a career or profession in a “possibilities” lesson that uses skills the children have recently learnt, and, where possible, professionals are invited to talk about how Mathematics is used in their field of work. We also run an enterprise week each term where students are given a budget to buy, create and sell goods using a basic business model. These real life learning experiences ensure that our pupils are “money smart” and have confidence in dealing with the types of challenges the real world presents. We celebrate and encourage our students by taking part in challenges against other schools, as well as increasing confidence, practice and awareness through problem solving investigations.
Ultimately, we ensure that children leave Jessop equipped with a solid understanding and a curiosity for Mathematics, to support them in future success.
School priorities
- Embedding of mathematical vocabulary on IWB slides and displayed on working walls to ensure high level vocabulary is understood, revisited, accessible and utilised by the children at all times during a lesson.
- Embedding of Core Concepts within every maths lesson; revisited and displayed on working walls in classrooms.
- Secure the possibilities driver and diverse curriculum through the teaching and learning of a variety of jobs that use mathematical skills.
- Improve and sustain all pupils’ recall of multiplication facts.
- To deepen pupils’ understanding of key mathematical concepts through the teaching of maths mastery.
- Pupils investigate and 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.
Some of the Significant possibilities mathematicians’ within our Curriculum:
Intention | Implementation | Impact |
Maths teaching deepens a child’s thinking about mathematical concepts and increases their fluency.
Teachers are clear in what is expected to ensure consistency in the teaching and learning of Maths across the school, facilitating maths mastery.
Teachers have an exceptional understanding of how to facilitate maths mastery.
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.
| Subject Lead identified that using visual representations within lessons was an area where staff feel less confident. Resources and guidance were communicated during Staff Inset (Spring 2020) to ensure all children have access to various visual representations to support their learning and secure good progress.
Subject lead to continue to support staff with the use of visual representations in maths lessons across each year group in INSETS.
Subject Lead has liaised with Creative Curriculum and Science leads to embed cross-curricular learning opportunities. Curriculum has been mapped where possible links have been established. One lesson per half term on the Science Medium Term Plans for each year group has focused on a maths link.
Subject steering groups are creating a pictorial representation booklet for each year group to use for ideas on how to use visual representation to support the children’s learning. The booklets cover each area of maths and all teachers are actively encouraged to use this when planning.
Subject lead has supported and guided staff in how to plan and teach various possibilities careers and professions that use mathematical skills as part of their job. Teachers have used the medium term plan to map out suitable careers for different topics during an INSET.
SLT and Subject leads have updated the calculation policy for the school’s website which is accessible to parents and teachers.
Subject leads have ensured, through staff meetings, that all members of staff are aware of the whole school resources. Subject Steering Group utilised to organise maths resource cupboards so all resources are organised, clearly labelled and accessible for day to day teaching.
Subject Leads continue to carry out monitoring through learning walks and book scans to ensure expectations are being met. Subject Leads continue to feedback to staff about good practice at relevant staff meetings and INSET days.
Subject Lead to support all class teachers with their planning of investigations. Teachers plan an investigation lesson every other week to encourage sophisticated problem solving.
Subject Leads to conduct parent workshops to promote Maths mastery across the School. Maths leader to create/distribute letters to give out to parents to inform/support maths learning at home.
Subject lead has set up an online multiplication provision for pupils to access at home. CT to monitor weekly access and launch year group competitions to encourage activity. Subject lead signed up to take part in the ‘London Rocks’ TTRS competition. This is a competition between London schools to see which school can achieve the highest number of correct answers.
| Feedback shows that staff feel more confident using pictorial representations and access Whiterose, NCETM, NRICH and the Jessop ‘pictorial representations booklet’ to support their planning.
All year groups are conducting a lesson per half term exploring the possible jobs that use different areas of maths. Children are linking their knowledge to the Jessop enterprise/possibilities driver.
Links with other subjects are embedded within the Medium Term Planning (Science, Cookery, Computing, PE, Forest School), which has ensured the implementation of a broad and rich curriculum whereby interleaving skills can be revisited and applied across the curriculum.
Children’s feedback has proved greater knowledge of jobs that use mathematical skills that are exposing pupils to experiences/opportunities later in life and increasing their cultural capital.
Pupils know how and why maths is used in the outside world and in the workplace. They know about different ways that maths can be used to support their future potential.
Pupils are using TTRockstars online provision as part of a weekly homework and enjoying the healthy competitions between class members and classes. CT are beginning to notice an improvement with the fluency of their timetables. CT can easily monitor the use of the website and encourage others to use it. Children and parents speak very highly of the platform and love using it. |
To create a vocabulary rich environment, where talk for maths is a key learning tool for all pupils. Pre teaching key vocabulary is a driver for pupil understanding and develops the confidence of pupils to explain mathematically.
All pupils to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language | Subject Leads have identified key vocabulary for each half term and are continuing to monitor that this is embedded in planning, IWB slides and displays.
Subject lead communicated to teachers how the ‘word of the week’ is to be introduced in lessons, encouraging talk opportunities and interactive activities in their planning through INSET Autumn 2020.
Subject lead shared and celebrated good practice of how to teach new vocabulary including word of the week and how this may look in different lessons across the school.
Subject lead to share outstanding rich vocabulary classroom displays from class audits Autumn 2020.
SLT and Subject lead to monitor how class teachers are feeding key vocabulary into their lessons and how pupils are using the language in their explanations.
| Through observation and book scrutinise children are actively encouraged to talk about the definition of each word and use it in the context of their learning. CT are introducing ‘word of the week’ in their lessons, launching the words on a Monday and planning interactive lessons each day throughout the week.
Classroom audits show that children are exposed to the word of the week in classroom displays. Clear definitions or interactive displays encourage children to use the words when mathematically explaining their learning.
UKS2 children are developing their fluency with mathematical language by ticking off the ‘word of the week’ on their LO when they have used it in their explanations or talk opportunities throughout the lesson.
Pupils use acquired vocabulary in maths lessons. They have the skills to use methods independently and show resilience when tackling problems.
Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their maths lessons and speak about how they love learning about maths. They can articulate the context in which maths is being taught and relate this to real life purposes.
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Teachers feel confident to assess the attainment of pupils in the Maths curriculum, plan for next steps and target specific pupils or groups of pupils in order to enable good and accelerated progress in Maths across the school. Teachers are using progression data to inform planning at the correct pitch and prevent overlap. Teacher’s next steps and children’s opportunities for responding to marking is linked to new assessment tool. | Subject Lead has worked with the Assessment Coordinator and have devised and implemented an assessment tool. Class teachers use the data to inform teaching and learning.
Maths Lead to conduct termly data analysis to identify gaps and target groups and individual children to ensure good and accelerated progression is maintained. Target children participate in intervention to further embed understanding and bridge gaps.
Subject Lead has communicated expectations, in terms of data drops, three times a year in line with curriculum already taught.
Children have been assessed against expectations in the curriculum on a termly basis
Children continue to self-reflect using Responding to Marking twice a week in their books.
Subject Lead to ensure assessments are accurate through monitoring, book scans, learning walks and moderation meetings with both the Partnership and cluster schools group. | Recent progress data reflects that children in Year 6 make progress well above the national average in Maths (+4.5), which has put the school in the top 3% of school’s across the country for children’s progress.
LA and in house data reflects that a high percentage of children achieve the expected standard in Maths at KS1 (87%) and KS2 SATS (92%) and a significant percentage achieve above the expected standard- 30% in KS1 and 38% in KS2 SATS.
Book Scans, Lesson Observations, Learning Conversations and Learning Walks confirm that the formative assessment that teachers conduct enables them to consolidate learning and move it forward so children are making optimum attainment and progress.
GD statements from Classroom Monitor assessment are being used alongside the medium term planning which has ensured clear differentiation and challenge for our more able pupils.
Assessment audits reflect that the school’s digital platform for assessment, Classroom Monitor, is being used accurately by teachers and support staff to track what children have achieved, meaning gaps are identified early so planning and intervention can be used to help children bridge any difference.
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