Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact

Intent

At Fordley Primary School, we believe that maths is a powerful tool for our children to better understand the world around them and an essential prerequisite for accessing opportunities in later life. As such, we aim to develop confident and capable mathematicians who possess both a secure understanding of the key mathematical concepts outlined within the National Curriculum and the enthusiasm and inquisitiveness to challenge themselves to deepen their own understanding.

We believe that in order to have a meaningful understanding of maths, children need to gain a secure conceptual understanding of the key mathematical areas which underpin the primary curriculum. As such, we aim to support our children to think deeply about mathematical structures through ensuring our curriculum and approach to teaching coherently and progressively enables children to gain a deeper and richer understanding of mathematical concepts. We seek to develop automaticity of recall of key number facts to ensure understanding is retained in the long-term and cognitive load is reduced; thus allowing our children to fully develop their reasoning and problem-solving skills.

At Fordley Primary School, we believe that children learn best when they are actively involved in lessons and take ownership for developing their own understanding. In order to best promote this, we structure teaching and learning to enable children to explore, reflect and make connections and thus take ownership of their learning journey as they progress through the school. We aim to actively teach mathematical vocabulary to ensure that children can participate fully in lessons and confidently explain their reasoning.  Through consistently promoting metacognition, we aim to develop learners who are inquisitive, confident in sharing their own ideas and set the highest expectations in terms of what they wish to achieve for themselves.

Implementation

To ensure our provision best equips the children with the knowledge, skills and understanding required to excel, we have made sure that our children experience a rigorous and coherent curriculum which aligns with the dispositions and capabilities we aim to develop (as set out within the curriculum intent).

As a school, we work closely with the NCETM and Great North Maths Hub to develop the provision for the teaching and learning of mathematics. To ensure our curriculum reflects this approach consistently, we follow the Mastering Number@KS1 programme in Reception, From Year 1 to Year 6, we follow the NCETM curriculum prioritisation materials. This ensures that our children benefit from a curriculum that is consistent and progressive in terms of the use of representation, the efficient strategies for calculation introduced and the teaching of tier three vocabulary.

While we follow the teaching sequence set out in the NCETM Curriculum Prioritisation materials, we ensure that they are used flexibly and responsively based upon the needs of the children. Lessons are designed to ensure as many learners as possible meet the national expectations of their group through the targeted use of additional adult support, collaborative learning and support materials where required. Where there is a specific educational need which prevents a child from accessing the expectations of their year group then differentiated learning opportunities will be created to ensure they progress against their individual targets. Through employing a teaching for mastery approach, we create ‘rich’ learning opportunities which challenge all learners and promote the development of higher-level mathematical thinking (see progression of skills document for exemplification). Through progressing through the curriculum at the same pace, we provide all children with the opportunity to have the opportunity to a challenging curriculum which provides sufficient opportunity to gain a greater depth of understanding.

We recognise that quality-first teaching is the biggest driver of pupil achievement (as recognised by the EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit). As such, we invest in continuous professional development to ensure that our staff have the subject and pedagogical knowledge required to deliver the high-quality teaching that best enables all of our children to progress fully. Our teachers (and support staff) consistently have the opportunity to attend CPD training opportunities through the Great North Maths Hub and the local authority.

Through curriculum coherence and a well-established teaching pedagogy, we create lessons that focus on developing a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts. To achieve this, children explore mathematical concepts using a range of representations (concrete, pictorial and abstract) which are varied in order to enable children to understand what is essential about that concept. Maths is taught through reasoning and problem-solving activities that makes connections to previous learning and thus places new learning in the context of the learning journey. In line with recommendations from the OFSTED research report ‘Coordinating Mathematical Success’ we focus upon outcomes (rather than activities) and encourage teachers to be flexible in terms of the amount of time spent on units of learning to ensure that children have fully mastered the the Ready-to Progress criteria (set out within the DFE Mathematics guidance (2020) before continuing with their learning journey.

Assessment is used as a tool to support teachers in providing tasks which support them in gauging pupil understanding and thus enabling them to adapt teaching responsively. Prior to commencing a unit of learning teachers revisit the conceptual prerequisites set out within the DFE Mathematics Guidance (the sections which need to be revisited are evident in curriculum pre-requisite document). This activates prior learning, reinforces links to previous coverage and allows any misconceptions to be addressed prior to commencing a unit of learning. ‘Hot’ assessment questions (drawn from the Ready-To-Progress assessment questions) are used during a unit of learning to provide an assessment for learning opportunity for teachers as well as to ‘activating students as owners of their own learning’ and ‘providing feedback which moves learners forward’ (William 2011). At the end of the term a ‘cold’ assessment is completed (also drawing upon the Ready-To-Progress assessment questions) to support teachers in gaining a clear oversight of retention of key understandings, allowing teachers to target additional support effectively in response to this and ongoing monitoring and refining of the maths curriculum.

Beyond the daily maths lesson, children take part in fluency sessions to embed understanding and ensure they develop automaticity of recall (number facts). In Year 1 and Year 2 the Mastering Number@KS1 programme; in Year 3 it focuses upon the consolidation of additive reasoning (number facts); in Year 4 and Year 5 the school is participating in Mastering Number@KS2 trial to develop multiplicative reasoning while in Year 6 fluency is responsive to assessment for learning to ensure that all children leave our school with a secure understanding of number.

Impact

As a result of the implementation of the curriculum, children are enthusiastic about their learning and positive about what they can achieve in the subject. This is confirmed by a recent pupil voice where one child stated they enjoy maths because they “like to solve problems”, another mentioned they learn “rules to calculate efficiently” and another exclaiming that “maths helps prepare us for high school to do more complex problems.”

The impact of the curriculum ensures that all groups of children achieve very good levels of progress as they move through the school and leave Fordley as capable and confident mathematicians. This is supported by the 2024 KS2 SATS results where 80% of pupils met the expected standard (above national and local averages).

As such, we feel that through the structure and coherence of our curriculum; the school’s focus upon continual improvement; the drive of our staff to achieve the very best for our children and the enthusiasm and positivity of the amazing children, our children thrive and progress in terms of developing their mathematical understanding.