Maths

At South Malling, we follow a mastery maths curriculum. This rejects the idea that a large proportion of people ‘just can’t do maths’ and all pupils are encouraged that by working hard at maths they can succeed.

Pupils are taught through whole-class interactive teaching, where the focus is on all pupils working together on the same lesson content at the same time, as happens in Shanghai and several other regions that teach maths successfully. The structure and connections within mathematics are emphasised using manipulatives and visual representations, so that pupils develop a secure understanding that they can sustain and build upon.

Procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are developed in tandem because each supports the development of the other and this ensures that all children master concepts before moving to the next part of the curriculum sequence, allowing no pupil to be left behind.

If a pupil struggles to grasp a concept or procedure, early intervention ensures the pupil is ready to move forward with the whole class in the next lesson.

Helping Your Child at Home

It is important that children understand that maths is part of everyday life, and not just something that applies within a maths lesson. Although every effort is made to place children's learning within a wider context, it helps hugely if a child is having regular mathematical conversations at home. Great areas for discussion include:

Money - Shopping and questions about price, more or less expensive, and change.

Time - Conversations about how long it takes to get somewhere, times on both analogue and digital clocks, and using calendars.

Measures - Your child could help with cooking or baking? It involves a huge amount of reading scales, measuring, calculating and estimating. Do they have an idea of what basic measures look like? (A litre of milk, and apple weighs around 100g etc)

Shape and Direction - Making the language of shape a part of everyday life is a great help as the very specific nature of mathematical vocabulary can be a stumbling block for some children. It's also hugely helpful for children to be familiar with solving shape problems(such as jigsaws) and creating 3D models.

Vocabulary - There is a lot of specific vocabulary associated with mathematics and the National Strategies have produced a useful document that indicates the language a child should become familiar with and comfortable using in each year. This is attached below.

Helping Your Child in KS2

Attached are a variety of National Strategies documents that are aimed at the parents of Year 5 and 6 children, although they can be helpful to parents throughout KS2.