The National Curriculum

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

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that children have conceptual understanding and are able to recall and apply their 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.

Mathematics at Bevois Town Primary School

At Bevois Town Primary School we want all children to be able to see mathematics as an interconnected subject and be able to make connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems. We aim to ensure our learners are able to apply their mathematical knowledge to science and other subjects.

The expectation in the National Curriculum is that the majority of children will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, decisions about when to progress should always be based on the security of children’s’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Children who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including, through additional practice, before moving on.

Learning Journeys

In each class, the mathematical ‘Learning Journey’ is informed by prior learning outcomes and National Curriculum expectations.

Within each Learning Journey, we aim to design a sequence of carefully crafted lessons which provide learners, of all abilities, with a scaffolded conceptual journey through mathematics; engaging pupils at each step, in Communication, Problem solving and Reasoning (CPR) to develop their mathematical thinking.

Mastery of facts, procedures and concepts needs time: time to explore the concept in detail and time to allow for sufficient practice to develop fluency. Each Learning Journey should link to those taught earlier in the term so learners have the opportunity to apply learning from one aspect of mathematics to another, for example their knowledge of calculation strategies in measurement or statistics

White Rose Maths Hub

At Bevois Town Primary School, teachers from Year 1 to Year 6 use detailed schemes of learning published by the White Rose Maths Hub to plan effective maths lessons. These are adapted as appropriate using teachers’ assessment of  pupils’ learning.  The year group schemes of work support ‘Teaching for Mastery’ and can be viewed here:

Times Table Rockstars / Numbots

By the end of Year 4, children should be proficient in all of their times-tables up to 12x12. In the summer term, the children in Year 4 sit the Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) to test their knowledge of times tables. To support the learning and continued practise of times tables, we use Times Table Rockstars (TTRS). This is an online platform where children engage in a range of games to improve their speed and accuracy with times tables. 

Prior to learning their times tables, children need to become proficient in their basic addition and subtraction skills. To support this, we use Numbots. This is linked to TTRS, but children compete to become faster and more efficient at their basic number bonds.