The basic skills of mathematics are vital for the life opportunities of our children. Our aim is for all children to think mathematically, enabling them to reason, solve problems and assess risk in a range of contexts.  

At North Downs Primary School, our Mathematics Mastery curriculum has been developed to ensure every child can achieve excellence in mathematics. Children can experience a sense of achievement and pride as they solve a problem for the first time, discover different solutions and make links between different areas of mathematics. It provides pupils with a deep understanding of the subject through a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach. This ensures pupils fully understand what they are learning. 

INTENT
We believe that all children should have:

• A deep understanding of maths and number.
• A positive and resilient attitude towards mathematics and an awareness of the fascination of mathematics.
• Competence and confidence in mathematical knowledge, concepts and skills.
• an ability to solve problems, to reason, to think logically and to work systematically and accurately.
• A range of learning strategies: working both collaboratively and independently.
• Fluency in mathematics where children can express ideas confidently and talk about the subject using mathematical language.
• An understanding of the importance of mathematics in everyday life.
• Independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning.

Our maths curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics through placing number at the heart of our curriculum with daily practice to ensure fluency of number facts
• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry 'through ensuring discussion plays a vital role in all lessons.  Children are actively encouraged to discuss with peers and teachers 'how?' 'why?' using mathematical language 
• can solve problems by ensuring problem-solving is embedded in every lesson and variation of questions are used to enable children to apply their knowledge to different situations
• are encouraged through variation of questions, to make rich connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency which can be seen in every lesson and evidenced in the maths books.
• who grasp concepts rapidly experience challenge in each lesson through sophisticated problems and an opportunity for children to demonstrate their understanding creating their own problems.

IMPLEMENTATION

• Our mastery approach to the curriculum is designed to develop children's knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts from the Early Years through to the end of Y6. 
• In school, we follow the national curriculum and use White Rose Schemes of Work as a guide to support teachers with their planning and assessment. 
• The calculation policy is used within school to ensure a consistent approach to teaching the four operations over time.
• The times tables policy is used within school to ensure a consistent approach to teaching times tables.
• To learn mathematics effectively, some things have to be learned before others, e.g. place value needs to be understood before working with addition and subtraction, addition needs to be learnt before looking at multiplication (as a model of repeated addition). 
• Our emphasis is on number skills first, carefully ordered, throughout our primary curriculum. 
• To ensure there are planned opportunities for children to revisit their learning, teachers allocate one day a week to re-cap and embed learning, irrespective of the week’s learning objective. This allows for a greater depth of understanding and supports our commitment of a mastery approach.

IMPACT

• Children demonstrate a deep understanding of maths. This includes the recollection of the times table. 
• Children display a positive and resilient attitude towards mathematics and an awareness of the fascination of mathematics. 
• Children show confidence in believing that they will achieve.
• Each child achieves objectives (expected standard) for year group. 
• The flexibility and fluidity to move between different contexts and representations of maths.
• The chance to develop the ability to recognise relationships and make connections in maths lessons. 
• Mathematical concepts or skills are mastered when a child can show it in multiple ways, using the mathematical language to explain their ideas, and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations. 

For further information regarding our Maths curriculum please contact Mrs Tubb, our Subject Lead, by emailing info@northdowns.surrey.sch.uk