Maths Curriculum

At St Joseph’s we aim to develop the children’s confidence, knowledge, skills and understanding of maths by making real links to maths within the children’s experiences, their futures and the world itself. We want children to love maths and see the relevance of maths so that it doesn’t feel like a stand alone subject. As a result, teachers provide opportunities for the children to apply maths across the curriculum in addition to daily maths lessons.

St Joseph’s Approach to Maths Maths Long Term Plan

Tracking Progress in Maths

We use Target Tracker to record the progress of each child in maths. Teachers use a range of ongoing teacher assessments and summative assessments to gather evidence. See the band posters for each year group below:

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6

Using Practical Equipment

We encourage the children to use practical equipment, moving to pictorial and then abstract to develop a deeper understanding of maths. Children have a range of resources in their classroom to choose freely to support their problem solving.

Burn2Learn

We also like our maths lessons to be active, so we include Burn2Learn opportunities on a weekly basis to get the children up and active whilst learning and having fun.

: Physically Active Learning

Mathseeds and Mathletics

At Joseph’s, all our children have access to an online maths learning platform. FS2 and Y1 can work on Mathseeds and from Y2 to Y6, the children have logins to work on Mathletics. These apps can be accessed both in school and at home to support each child to develop confidence, knowledge and understanding in maths through personalised learning which is engaging to each age group and every child’s ability. Mathseeds and Mathletics encourage a growth mindset in maths too which compliments our whole school approach to growth mindset. Our children complete a range of homework tasks using the apps, as well as additional tasks which they can choose to access, and we see an increasing number of children sharing certificates in our weekly Golden Book achievement celebration.

: Photo Credit – Mathletics

: Photo Credit – Mathseeds

TTRS (Times Tables Rock Stars)

: Photo Credit- Times Tables Rockstars

At Joseph’s, all our children from Year 3 to Y6 also have access to a maths learning platform called TTRS. This can be accessed both in school and at home to support each child to develop their fluency and recall of their times tables and opposite division facts. We have chosen this programme as a school it supports our new whole school KIRF (Key Instant Recall Facts) targets and it plays a role in supporting our children in the maths element of our catch-up programme.

Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice. Each week it concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so. Every child has a personalised Rock Star account. The children have a selection of Gigs that they can play on and they earn coins that they can spend in the shop to personalise their rock star.

To get the most out of Times Tables Rock Stars, and for children to make good progress with this, we have set the expectation that children log on at least 4 days a week and play for 5 minutes! This approach we feel is extremely manageable, but will have really great impact if accessed little and often! Pupils can play for more than 5 minutes, but it is the short, repetitive bursts that will have the most impact.

Parents and carers are an important part of the learning process. If you need any support or further information, please see the useful links section below.

Useful Links for Parents

Click here to go to Mathletics platform Click here for Mathletics help BBC Bitesize KS1 BBC Bitesize KS2

Fluency in Mathematics – Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs)

Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) are designed to support the development of the mental skills and key knowledge that underpin much of the maths work in school. An important part of maths development has always been learning of certain maths facts. Each half term children focus on one area of Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) that will be taught in school but also need to be practised at home.

It is important that children know these facts thoroughly and can recall them instantly. Whilst children have a wide range of abilities in mathematics, the KIRFs are designed to be a set of facts that need to be learnt thoroughly as they build on each other year on year.

Click the button to see the KIRFs for each year group. Whole School KIRF Targets

Please engage with your children in the learning of their KIRFs and make it as fun and practical as you can. Below you will find some ideas for activities that you could try at home. Children should aim to undertake KIRF practice regularly at home, little and often is the best approach.

Click the button for ideas you can try at home. There are examples for all year groups. KIRF activities for all year groups

What KIRFs look like in school:

: Nursery uses lots of practical equipment and things from outdoors to work on their number knowledge!

: Foundation stage works with many practical representations and especially loves the dinosaur matching activities!

: Year 1 works on various representations of arrays to find multiplication facts.

: Year 2 works on number bonds to 20 and they could find many ways to partition!

: Year 3 works well on their multiples and they are improving their speed of recall!

: Year 4 uses practical equipment like dominoes, cards or counters to quickly test each other on addition and subtraction facts. We also practise our times tables regularly!