Everyone can do maths!

At Ravenor, we believe that all children can succeed in maths. We want all our children and families to have a positive attitude towards the subject and for them to see themselves as competent mathematicians.

We are on an exciting journey towards embedding a mastery approach to teaching and learning maths across the school. For Ravenor, ‘teaching for mastery’ includes:

• Devoting more time to introduce of key ideas
• Focusing on one key idea only in each lesson
• Teaching the whole class together: focusing on pupils working collaboratively on the same lesson content at the same time
• Concentrating on pupils’ thinking (as well as doing)
• Anticipating difficult points and possible mistakes in thinking or understanding
• Choosing representations (how the maths is shown in pictures) and models carefully
• Planning questioning carefully
• Expecting and supporting precise explanations and reasoning from pupils
• Intervening quickly to support those falling behind

(The Essence of Maths Teaching for Mastery, NCETM)

Where we are on our journey

Teachers and pupils have been reflecting on their maths mindset and challenging beliefs about fixed abilities in maths. The use of working walls in each classroom has also been embedded with the aim of showing representations which expose the structure of the maths, provide worked examples of the learning and support children’s mathematical language development. Two Ravenor teachers are also involved in a MathsHub Work Group which meets several times over the course of a school year to develop their professional learning and practice while improving students’ learning and maths teaching across the school.

How do we plan maths at Ravenor?

Using the principles which underpin teaching for mastery, we follow the structures and recommendations outlined in the National Curriculum (2014) Programmes of Study and Early Years Development Goals.

We use the White Rose Maths schemes of learning as a tool to support our mastery approach. A strong emphasis is placed on developing fluency, problem solving and reasoning through small progressive steps to ensure all children understand the key ideas. Across all year groups, we follow medium term programmes of study (curriculum coverage maps) which map out the year’s curriculum across three terms.