At Long Ditton St.Mary’s Junior School, we are passionate about maths, believing that every child should be confident in maths, and have a ‘can do’ attitude to solving problems. We believe every child will feel success in maths and see its relevance in the real world.

Our maths curriculum is based on the National Curriculum Programme of Study alongside the DfE’s Ready to Progress Criteria, which aims to ensure that all pupils;

· become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately

· are able to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, identifying patterns and justifying and proving theories using mathematical language.

· can solve problems by applying 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.

We aim to achieve this through careful planning and resourcing to ensure every child is able to access the lesson’s learning and to stretch those who need a further challenge by deepening their understanding through asking the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ as well as asking questions with multiples answers to see where their understanding will take them.

As well as maths being taught five times a week, children have access to regular pre-teaching and ‘keep up’ sessions run by the class teachers. Each lesson starts with a recap of previous learning to help reinforce and embed their mathematical skills. Children are taught in mixed ability groups and are strongly encouraged to work in pairs to discuss their learning; use accurate mathematical language and challenge and extend one another by explaining why they believe an answer to be correct or how they can prove their understanding is accurate.

We endeavour to embed maths throughout our curriculum, notably in our REAL projects, computing, DT and science, where children are proactively encouraged to utilise their mathematical skills in accurate measurements and data representations.

We encourage a love of maths by giving the children the opportunity to regularly experience ‘real life’ maths, seeing how maths can be used in our every day and in the world around us. There are also regular Times Table Rock Star competitions and half termly ‘Upper School’ and ‘Lower School’ mathematical challenges for the children to challenge themselves with.

We use the National College of Excellence in Teaching Mathematics (NCETM) resources when planning our units of work and ensure progression across the school.

The quality of the teaching and the children’s learning is monitored through regular book reviews, lesson observations and moderations - internally within school and externally with our Surrey Maths Hub and Ember Learning Trust partners.