Harmans Water Primary School

Mathamatics is essential to everyday life it helps children to understand and appreciate relationships and pattern in both number and space in the world around them.  Our aim is to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding alongside the ability to reason and problem solve mathematically. We provide teaching which promotes a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject and motivates children to be life-long learners.  

We teach Maths skills from Nursery through to Year 6. Children from years 1 to 6 have a maths lesson every morning with other links being made through other subjects of the curriculum. Children in the Early years have mathematics teaching sessions as well as having a range of maths opportunities set up for the children in their environment that they will access through their play.

During maths lessons we are providing children with the skills to allow them to show fluency in their maths as well as being able to problem solve and reason. It is important that our children make cross curricular links and see how ‘maths’ and numbers are used in their everyday lives as this gives the children purpose to their maths learning. 

Teachers provide children with a range of methods for learning new skills, which starts with concrete apparatus before moving onto pictures and then abstract recordings. Children have access to a wide range of resources including Numicon, Carr Bars, Dienes and place value counters. This allows children to have a bank of tools and resources to support them in solving open problems and investigations. Another part of Maths that is vitally important is the language that goes with the processes. We teach our children to use correct mathematical vocabulary to explain their workings out and thinking. By using the practical resources, it has really helped with children’s understanding and in turn this has helped them to really explain their thinking.

Times tables are vitally important and we want every child in our school to have learnt their times tables off by heart. Across Key Stage 2 we have a times table mountain challenge which supports the children in learning their times tables. Times tables make up part of our maths homework which children get on a weekly basis.