Maths
Intent
Here at Ropsley C of E Primary School, our mathematics curriculum reflects our vision of being a caring, happy, and inclusive church school where every child is valued and encouraged to flourish. We are committed to providing an excellent education that nurtures curiosity, resilience, and a life-long love of learning in a global context.
Mathematics is a fundamental skill that underpins many aspects of life. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that all pupils become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, developing a strong foundation through varied practice and deep conceptual understanding. We encourage pupils to reason mathematically, exploring patterns, making connections, and justifying their thinking using precise mathematical language. Problem-solving is at the heart of our approach, helping pupils to apply their learning to a wide range of situations, both routine and non-routine, by breaking down complex challenges and persevering in finding solutions.
Through an engaging and inspiring curriculum, we aim to develop mathematicians who are not only competent but also curious, reflective, and resilient—equipped with the skills to flourish in a changing world.
Implementation
Our school uses the White Rose scheme of work. Each teacher uses this resource to help support their planning for small, connected steps alongside the NCETM Professional Development Materials. This ensures that learning progresses through small, coherent steps and new learning is built into a familiar context, resulting in deep, sustained learning. Teachers will spend longer on aspects of the curriculum if their assessment deems this appropriate.
Staff at Ropsley School have had training on teaching for Mastery and the ‘Five Big Ideas’ of Mastery and embed this into their planning.
The structure of a Maths Mastery lesson consists of the following:
- Whole class teaching
- Ping pong
- Use of manipulatives to support teaching and understanding
- Use of different representations
- Lessons building through Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract stages of learning
- Stem sentences to orally rehearse answers ready to reason about Mathematics
- Reasoning to apply and deepen mathematical understanding.
- Support for children with SEND through preteaching and specific support
KS2 also delivers a daily CLIC session – Counting, Learn its, It’s Nothing New, Calculation. This helps children have a strong understanding of number so they can recall known facts with speed and accuracy. Children are tested through either the ‘Beat That!’ or ‘Learn Its’ assessments each Friday.
Children in the EYFS and KS1 have daily Mastering Number sessions. Mastering Number aims to develop strong number sense, fluency in number facts, and confidence in working with numbers.
Impact
By the time our children reach the end of KS2, we aim for them to be fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics. They can recall times table facts and number bonds quickly and apply them to problems. They can reason mathematically using vocabulary they have rehearsed through their maths lessons.
We measure the impact of our high quality Mathematics curriculum by:
- Using the White Rose block assessments to measure learning after the teaching of each block.
- NFER tests at the end of each big term; December, April and July.
- Discussing work with pupils and collating feedback from pupils about their Maths lessons.
- Completing work scrutinies.
- Moderating children’s work with other schools in our Grace Schools Collaboration.
- Using the Question Level Analysis from the Year 6 National Curriculum tests to target weaker areas of teaching.