Maths

Welcome to our maths page!

Our vision is to provide an excellent, well-rounded education which celebrates academic, emotional and spiritual achievement and prepares everyone to fulfil their full potential in an inclusive environment in God’s World.

“Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.” — Shakuntala Devi, Indian writer.

As stated in the National Curriculum Purpose of Study for Mathematics, “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. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.”

 At St George’s, our Maths curriculum is underpinned by the above statement and we believe that mathematics is an essential part of children’s development throughout the school, from our youngest children in Nursery, through to the young adults we hand over to the next phase of their lifelong journey. The following aims are embedded within our teaching and are central to the engaging lessons where our children encounter a range of opportunities to explore mathematics following a mastery curriculum approach. We aim for all pupils to:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics so that they develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.

• be able to solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of challenges with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios.

• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry and develop and present a justification, argument or proof using mathematical language.

• have an appreciation of number and the four operations, which enable mental calculations and written procedures to be performed efficiently, fluently and accurately to be successful in mathematics.

Our intent is for all children to believe in themselves as mathematicians and develop the power, resilience and perseverance when faced with challenges. Underpinning our pedagogy is a belief that all children can achieve in Mathematics and we promote the teaching of secure, sustained and deep understanding by employing a range of mastery strategies with conceptual understanding at the heart of our teaching.

We also recognise that many children can find maths difficult and we promote an ‘I can do’ philosophy in which we aim to develop ‘growth mindset’ attitudes. Teachers use mistakes and misconceptions as an essential part of learning to build resilience. They also provide challenge through rich and sophisticated problems which promote a safe environment in which children are able to flourish.

At our school, our approach is to provide all children full access to the curriculum in order to achieve their full potential. This also includes our SEND children who have challenging mathematical activities provided for them suited to their needs. We strive to develop independence, fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in order to apply their skills and knowledge in a range of different contexts in the wider world.

We want all of our children to develop confidence as mathematicians, experience success and recognise the enjoyment which Mathematics can bring.