Maths at St. John's

At St John's C of E Primary School, Maths is an seen as an integral and essential element of our everyday lives and a necessary foundation for understanding the modern world.

Through the teaching of the Maths curriculum, pupils will make rich connections across mathematical ideas to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, to reason mathematically and to become competent  in solving increasingly sophisticated problems.

Daily teaching combines a concrete – pictorial – abstract approach (CPA) enabling children to explore mathematical concepts.  By revisiting these concepts year on year children can build upon and deepen their knowledge and understanding.

Through a conceptual, engaging, practical and challenging learning experience all children leaving St John’s will have an appreciation of the power of maths, a sense of enjoyment and a curiosity about the subject.

Mathematical teaching and learning at St John’s is outlined in detail below.

Years 1 and 2

The key focus of mathematics teaching in Key stage 1 is to ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value.

By the end of year 2 pupils should know the number bonds to 20 and be precise in using and understanding place value.

Pupils should develop their ability to recognise, draw, describe, compare and sort different shapes.  They should also use a range of measures to describe and compare length, mass, capacity/volume, time and money.

Years 3 and 4

The key focus is to ensure that pupils become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and place value.  Pupils will develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers.

Pupils will develop their ability to solve a range of problems including with simple fractions and decimal place value.  They should draw with increasing accuracy and develop mathematical reasoning so that they can analyse shapes and their properties.  They should use measuring instruments with accuracy and make connections between measure and number.

By the end of year 4 pupils should have memorised all of the multiplication tables up to and including the 12 multiplication table.

 Years 5 and 6

The key focus is for pupils to extend their understanding of the number system and place value, to include larger integers.  They will develop the connections between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio.

Pupils will be expected to solve a wider range of problems which will demand efficient written and mental methods of calculation.  With this foundation in arithmetic pupils will be introduced to the language of algebra as a means for solving a variety of problems.

Geometry and measure will consolidate and extend previous knowledge developed in number.  Pupils will classify shapes with increasingly complex geometric properties and learn the vocabulary they need to describe them.

By the end of year 6 pupils should be fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages.