Mathematics

At GES we want our children to develop a love of mathematics and see its value in the real world. Lessons are designed to be stimulating and engaging, encouraging collaboration and discussion between staff and pupils to allow children to positively influence and direct their own learning. By making high expectations clear and emphasising the value of mathematics education, pupils are encouraged to build confidence and resilience.

Our scheme of work is based around the principles of mastery in line with the National Curriculum for England and Wales. This gives pupils the opportunity to stay together and work through new content as a whole group. Concepts are blocked to enable a secure and deep understanding of each mathematical area before progressing to the next. These skills are embedded throughout subsequent topics to allow for repetition and application of skills e.g. fundamental place value skills will be applied to the four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages and measurement topics.

The way pupils speak and write about mathematics transforms their learning. Our mastery approach uses a carefully sequenced, structured approach to introduce and reinforce mathematical vocabulary. Pupils explain the mathematics in full sentences. They should be able to say not just what the answer is, but how they know it’s right. This is key to building mathematical language and reasoning skills.

Mathematical concepts are explored in a variety of representations and problem-solving contexts to give pupils a richer and deeper learning experience. Pupils combine different concepts to solve complex problems, and apply knowledge to real-life situations.