Chapel End Infant School and Early Years Centre

Maths is a central curriculum area and being numerate is an important life skill. At Chapel End, we aim to link Maths in the classroom to the real world in as many ways as possible to strengthen children’s understanding and make Maths relevant to their lives.  

The 2014 National Curriculum for Maths aims to ensure that all children: 

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics 

• Are able to reason mathematically 

• Can solve problems by applying their Mathematics 

At Chapel End, these skills are embedded within daily Maths lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are also able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts. We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. 

To ensure whole consistency and progression, the school uses the White Rose Maths schemes of learning. The White Rose Maths programme supports progression throughout the primary years and has a strong ‘CPA’ thread running throughout. This means that children are exposed to conceptual ideas at a concrete level with a range of apparatus (e.g. counters, beads, dienes and Numicon) before moving on pictorial representations. This may mean diagrams, sketches or using a ‘bar model’ to solve problems. Doing so develops children’s conceptual understanding and skills fluency which supports the next move into abstract mathematics, such as long division. Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, to enable the achievement of ‘mastery’ over time. Each lesson phase provides the means to achieve greater depth, with more able children being offered rich and sophisticated problems, as well as exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate. 

The content and principles underpinning the 2014 Mathematics curriculum and the Maths curriculum here at Chapel End are outlined below: 

• Teachers reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Mathematics. 

• The large majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace. 

• Differentiation is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual scaffolding and intervention. 

• Teaching is underpinned by methodical curriculum design and supported by carefully crafted lessons and resources to foster deep conceptual and procedural knowledge. 

• Practice and consolidation play a central role. Carefully designed variation within this builds fluency and understanding of underlying mathematical concepts. 

• Teachers use precise questioning in class to check conceptual and procedural knowledge and assess children regularly to identify those requiring intervention, so that all children keep up. 

The school has a supportive ethos and our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievement of others. Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child.  

Please see below for our White Rose termly overviews for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2: 

• Reception Scheme of Learning 

• Year 1 Scheme of Learning 

• Year 2 Scheme of Learning 

You can download the fantastic White Rose 1 Min Maths App designed for use both in school and at home, helping children build greater number confidence and fluency. It’s all about targeted practice in engaging, one-minute chunks! 

For further information on how we cover the objectives in Early Years, please see refer to the NCETM Early Years page which provides information on the six key areas of early mathematical learning.  

To understand more about early number sense, please watch this video which will give you a summary of how we approach maths at Chapel End in the EYFS.  

Online Maths games to help early number sense: 

• Play simple ‘subitising’ games with your child on Word Wall 

• Play a variety of number and shape games on Top Marks 

• Use your child’s school login to access Busy Things