At Manor Farm Junior School, our aim is to ensure that pupils are provided with the skills that they need in everyday life by helping them to become increasingly more confident when using the four operations to calculate, reason and problem solve. Teaching should ensure that pupils develop efficient methods when solving problems, both written and mental. As pupils progress through the school, they should perform calculations accurately with increasingly larger whole numbers and decimal numbers with a good understanding of place value. Pupils also have the opportunity to develop their understanding of measurement, shape and space and statistics, and to make connections between these skills and their number work. By the end of Year 4, pupils are expected to be confident with their times tables (up to 12 x 12) and, in order to do this, we use Times Tables Rock Stars, which the children tackle once a week. Pupils are also encouraged to recognise the relationships between multiplication tables and division facts.
INSPIRE Maths
In September 2018, we introduced a mastery approach to teaching Mathematics using a scheme called Inspire Maths. This scheme aims to meet the higher expectations of the 2014 curriculum and promotes enjoyment and enthusiasm for learning through practical activity and exploration of Maths. Inspire Maths encourages children to reason and apply their knowledge to solve a range of problems.
How Maths is enriched
Inspire encourages working as a whole class, mixing abilities and working together to explore and solve problems.
Any weakness highlighted is revisited in small groups, prior to further teaching.
The questions within the scheme enable children to be both supported and challenged, enabling them to reach their full potential. Should a child cover all of the elements within the scheme, teachers provide further challenge using sites such as ‘nrich’ to enable children to broaden their application.
ICT is encouraged as a teaching and learning tool, particularly in the provision of times table teaching. We use Times Table Rock Stars to engage and motivate the children to learn their tables in a modern and interactive way, whilst continuing to use our paper based system to provide additional support.
Investigations where children must work independently to further their understanding as a standalone exercise from our scheme as part of Maths days.
We enter Maths competitions, such as Explore Learning Maths and the Primary Maths Challenges, and those run by Times Tables Rock Stars.
We hold a Maths Day each year to encourage our pupils to experience Maths in a variety of different ways e.g. through murder mysteries, Maths relays and independent investigations. We have also invited visitors to enrich the children’s experience of Maths, such as The Problem Solving Company and the Puzzle Company, who provide opportunities for the pupils to explore and solve mathematical problems as a team. The children really enjoy these activities.
