How are maths lessons planned?

Curriculum planning is organised into three phases (long term, medium term and short term) using guidance from the NCETM (National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics) in the prioritising of curriculum content.

• Each concept is planned to progress through from its early steps through to consolidation, providing flexibility for children to secure, deepen or investigate their conceptual understanding.
• Taught objectives are planned out to best utilise links between mathematical ideas as well as connect to other areas of the curriculum, making effective use of resources.
• Teachers use a variety of commercial resources, including the professional Development materials provided by the NCETM, however are also encouraged to choose tasks to best facilitate reasoning and conceptual development.
• As children are assessed against the National Curriculum statements for each year group, planning is based around these objectives to ensure secure coverage and depth of understanding.

Using the 5 Big Ideas for reasoning

Within each lesson, teachers use the pedagogies that support the Five Big Ideas to structure delivery of the content:

Prompting thinking

• Children are provided a stimulus to discuss to encourage observation and begin to make connections between previous knowledge and new concepts.

Enabling learning

• Teacher input draws the children’s attention to particular elements of the concept and make links to other concepts.

Providing opportunities

• Children are given the chance to manipulate and reason with similar ideas to see the patterns or relationships through different representations. Supportive and challenging questioning allow for all children to learn at their appropriate level.

Investigation

• ‘Low threshold, high ceiling’ tasks are designed for children of all abilities to explore the concept more deeply and develop their mathematical thinking, discussion and investigative curiosity.

We as a school are also working closely with the Origin Maths Hub to develop a Teaching for Mastery approach across the school, sharing good practice with colleagues from other schools in order to understand the principles behind Teaching for mastery effectively.