Maths at Herringthorpe Infant School

We use a mastery approach when teaching Maths at Herringthorpe Infant School. Mastering maths means children acquire a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject.

Our long-term plan is based upon the recommended National Curriculum to ensure that children are exposed to a challenging curriculum. We use White Rose and NCETM materials to ensure that learning is sequential and uses small steps to support children to master each mathematical concept. The progression of skills is clear across school so that children are able to build upon solid foundations and create links to their new learning.

We want all children to succeed. We use the example of imagining that we are all on a boat. We are all on the same journey to the same destination. We don’t want anyone getting off our boat and zooming off on a speed boat which is why we don’t teach children content from older year groups. Instead we imagine that our boat has a glass bottom and children are able to explore concepts in more depth. We may even have children ‘scuba diving’ to delve even deeper into a concept in order to have a secure understanding.

We also don’t want any children ‘falling off the boat’ and getting left behind. To combat this we live mark to ensure that we identify children that need extra scaffolds or support in the lesson.  We plan 'keep up' sessions in an afternoon to enable children to have a secure understanding.

Our lessons follow a similar format every day. We teach ‘small steps’. The teacher will demonstrate, question and set short tasks. This is repeated throughout the lesson in a ‘ping pong’ style. Teaching in this way helps us to identify any difficulties and quickly tackle these. We don’t want to see any child sat struggling for too long. We use a mixture of practical apparatus, pictorial representations and eventually abstract ones when the children are ready. Our calculation policy demonstrates this (see below). We incorporate lots of variation so that children get used to seeing concepts in different ways. Every lesson will include some fluency work as well as problem solving and reasoning activities.

We use White Rose Maths and NCETM planning materials.

Mastering Number in EYFS and KS1

This year (2023/24) we have started the ‘Mastering Number’ project. The project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Attention will be given to key knowledge and understanding needed in Reception classes, and progression through KS1 to support success in the future.

The sessions run x4 per week for approx. 15 minutes. In KS1 these sessions are in addition to our main numeracy session. In EYFS the mastering number sessions make up the main part of our numeracy learning. Objectives not covered through this project are covered on day 5 of each week and these include all the learning about shape, space and measures.

Websites to support learning at home