Intent:
At RMS we believe Mathematics is a creative and highly interconnected discipline, developed over centuries and which provides the solutions to some of history’s most intriguing problems. We aim to enable our children to seek answers to questions and throughout their life, ‘do all the good they can’ to understand the world around them. For this we aim to provide a high-quality mathematics education and therefore, the ability to reason mathematically. We aim to teach our children that Mathematics is ‘for all’ and through it all can appreciate the beauty and power of Mathematics, a sense of enjoyment and a life-long curiosity about the subject.
Implementation
Through our maths curriculum which is accessible ‘for all’, we equip ‘all’ children with the knowledge and skills that they will need throughout life. Children will engage with varied and frequent practice on increasingly more complex problems over time, so that they have conceptual understanding and are able to recall and apply their knowledge rapidly and accurately. They will develop processes and secure understanding. Children will follow a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and learn to develop an argument, justification or demonstrate proof using mathematical language. Our children will apply their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions. Resilience and a ‘Can do’ attitude are key. Our school mantra is ‘Mistakes = Learning!’.
We engage ‘all’ children through whole class teaching for mastery, using the concrete, pictorial, abstract where appropriate to develop the children’s mathematical understanding and using fluency, reasoning and problem-solving activities to deepen learning and enable all children to ‘do all the good they can’.
Impact
Our children will be able to solve problems, both mathematical and otherwise, simple and more complex. This dexterity to make connections in their thinking and reasoning will be complemented by a secure foundation of known facts. All of our children will become confident and fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics. They will be able to reason mathematically, both individually and as part of a team, listening to others and reconstructing their own thinking. They will be skilled in using discussion to probe and remedy misconceptions. Our children will be able to choose specific vocabulary so they can explain their thinking processes and conclusions, presenting a mathematical argument or proof as they ‘do all the good they can’ in making sense of the wonderful mathematical world around them.