Maths
Curriculum Overview
Intent: why do we teach what we teach?
“Mathematics is a creative and highly interconnected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment.” The National Curriculum 2014
With these principles in mind, the intent of the mathematics curriculum at TES is to enable all students to enjoy and succeed in mathematics and to appreciate the value of mathematics beyond that which is tested in the examinations. By doing so we strongly believe that students will be sufficiently prepared for further learning in mathematics and become functionally numerate citizens.
To achieve this we have adopted the White Rose schemes of learning. This is an expertly designed curriculum which adheres to the National Curriculum requirements and follows a maths mastery approach to teaching and learning. It is designed in such a way for students to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, to be able to reason and to solve problems.
Implementation: how do we teach what we teach?
Cultural capital and social justice lie in the heart of what we do. With this in mind, our students are taught in a mixed attainment class setting. This ensures that no student is marginalised because of his/her prior attainment and eliminates the possibility that students who are from low-income families and ethnic minorities are missing out on having access to a broad curriculum in which to succeed.
The structure of our lesson underpins that of “The Elmgreen Teacher “and involves the following aspects;
· Retrieval Practice – to activate new learning
· Presenting New Knowledge – teacher models new skills and concepts
· Guided Practice – students use cooperative learning structures to practice in pairs
· Independent Task – student work on their own to master the new learning
· Plenary – Teacher checks for understanding and gives support or set extended challenge.
As a department we plan for the fact that some students will need more scaffolding while others will require a greater challenge. Teachers use a variety of approaches to teaching and learning to meet the needs of all students in every lesson. Some of these strategies include; the use of differentiated questioning with simpler questions being directed at children who need to build a sense of success and to improve their confidence, and more complex reasoning questions used to check pupil understanding, providing concrete and pictorial representations to support learners to understand mathematical concepts before introducing them to the abstract nature of mathematics, a coherent and sequential learning journey with small steps as the building block for in-depth conceptual understanding, and multiple strategies to check for understanding such as mini-white board, true or false, variation and identifying misconceptions.
Alongside our schemes of work, we have knowledge organisers to support students in their learning journey. Students are also encouraged to engage in independent learning outside of the classroom via the use of online learning platforms such as MathsWatch, MyMaths, Sam Learning, Corbett Maths and Integral maths.
Impact: how do we know what pupils have learnt and how well they have learnt it?
Assessment plays a major role in evaluating the impact of our curriculum. Teachers continually assess students learning within lessons and give verbal or written feedback to ensure progress is made. Mini-white boards and other AFL strategies are used to check for understanding and to assess whether students are ready to complete their independent task. If students are not ready, teachers re-model learning to those that need the additional support.
In line with the school’s marking and feedback policy, students are given a fortnightly assessment which is then marked with written feedback. Students are then given time in subsequent lessons to redraft their work or attempt additional targeted questions.
End of Block and End of Term assessment allow teachers to identify gaps in students’ knowledge and intervene accordingly. Data from these assessments are carefully analysed and give teachers an indication as to how well the cohort of students are performing compared to a similar cohort in previous years. It also enables us to broadly know if each individual student’s progress matches, exceeds or is under where we’d like it to be. In turn, this lets us know if the quality of teaching students are receiving is in line with our mission.
We also know that our curriculum has a positive impact through analysis of external examination results. The attainment of students at GCSE and A level continue to have a steady increase and Maths continues to be a popular option at KS5.
