Everyone Can Do Maths!

We firmly believe that everyone can learn and enjoy mathematics. A lifelong mathematical mindset across the whole Newick community means all children can thrive in maths. Through being taught a rich, carefully sequenced curriculum, everyone can achieve a deep and connected understanding of mathematics, which they can apply and communicate in the real world to enhance their lives. We promote maths as a fun, enjoyable subject, which is relevant to real life.

Curriculum Aims

Wisdom – our children will make rich connections across mathematical ideas and vocabulary helping to develop their fluency, reasoning and problem solving. This will help children to apply their mathematical knowledge in other subjects and real life contexts. 

Independence – our children will ensure their thinking is clear to themselves and others. The highlighting of misconceptions and mistakes will ensure that children become adept at spotting these independently and embracing mistakes as part of the rich learning process. Children will select and utilise concrete and pictorial manipulatives to help them see the structure of the mathematics and solve problems independently.  

Creativity – our children will become powerful thinkers by making connections, thinking logically and using space, data and numbers creatively. Children will explore the beauty of mathematics by looking at patterns and forming their own lines inquiry. Children will create eloquent reasoning to explain their thinking.  

Kindness – our children will develop a sense of curiosity and appreciation of the beauty that mathematics provides. They will work collaboratively with others to develop their reasoning, helping each other develop mathematical thinking with compassion. They will begin to have an awareness of the applications of mathematics in society in helping people to lead healthier and happier lives. 

The Newick Mathematics Mastery Curriculum

Mathematics never stands still at Newick! We are constantly reflecting on our practice and refining it. We strive to make our mathematics curriculum world class by exploring the latest pedagogical research and bringing it into our classrooms.

We follow the NCETM guidance for mastery, using the Five Big Ideas:

The Newick Approach to Mastery:

We base our Newick mathematics scheme of work on the PD spines and the best resources we can source to provide an engaging curriculum that stimulates and challenges all learners, no matter what their circumstances may be. This coherent curriculum breaks down concepts into small connected steps that gradually unfold, providing access for all children and leading to a generalisation of the concept and the ability to apply the concept to a range of contexts.

We enhance our curriculum further by using the DFE/NCETM Ready to Progress Criteria, published in July 2020. These criteria focus on the most important conceptual knowledge and understanding for each year group so that children can progress successfully.

All children work at broadly the same pace with provision for those that grasp a concept rapidly and those that need further help.

Fluency

Fluency is the point at which one no longer has to attend in order to perform.

Mark McCourt

A common example for this is riding a bike. It takes a huge amount of attention when learning this skill, but once it is mastered, no attention is required.

In the article named ‘Is it true that some people just can’t do math’ by Daniel Willingham he states that, “automaticity with procedures and facts is important because it frees [pupils] minds to think about concepts”. We want our children’s working memory to be free to focus on understanding the deeper structure of mathematics and problem solving.

We teach a short daily fluency session in Year 1 – 6, using retrieval practice to support our pupils with this aim. Our fluency sessions aim to help pupils gain automaticity as well as gain flexibility, accuracy and efficiency (Russell, 2000). Children need to know which method works best when and therefore which one is the most efficient. Fluency is the central element to the diagram shown here, where accuracy, flexibility and efficiency overlap.

EY and KS1 Fluency

We use the NCETM ‘Mastering Number’ project to enhance fluency in EYFS and KS1. This project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for ALL children. The aim over time is that children will leave Key Stage 1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number.  In KS1, the aim is to develop fluency of the addition and corresponding subtraction facts in the diagram below:

KS2 Fluency

We use the NCETM ‘Mastering Number’ project in Years 4 and 5, which aims to secure firm foundations in multiplicative relationships. Knowledge of multiplication and division and its application forms the single most important aspect of the KS2 curriculum, and is the gateway to success at secondary schools. We also use our own bespoke fluency programme which focuses on times tables, called ‘Funky Fridays’, which both motivates and encourages pupils, as well as allowing us to track children’s progression through learning their times tables. We use a range of other resources to support fluency, including the NCETM Ready to Progress criteria, which allows us to revisit and consolidate key learning. Children at Newick count daily in each year group, using our bespoke counting stick, to support them becoming confident and develop automaticity in their times tables and related division facts, which they can apply across the mathematics curriculum.

Any further questions, please contact our subject leads: Claire Clarke and Alex Oldfield 

Key Maths Documents

• 2024 2025 Reception Maths Overview
• Maths guidance KS 1 and 2
• Maths Overview Yr1 6

Useful Resources