Our primary school curriculum is carefully designed to ensure a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all pupils. The curriculum intent aims to inspire a love for learning, foster curiosity, and equip pupils with the skills and knowledge they need to flourish academically and personally. It is rooted in a deep understanding of the local community that ensures that we ‘value our past’, celebrate diversity, promote cultural capital, prepare pupils for life in modern Britain and ‘look to the future with hope’.

Commitment to our pupils is fulfilled through our high aspiration, passion and drive and is founded upon the following four key principles:

1. Unlocking children's true academic potential to ensure that they ‘flourish’.

We aim to develop confident, resilient, inquisitive, independent & knowledgeable children through the delivery of a coherent & structured enquiry based curriculum which builds on prior learning from nursery to year 6. Individuals are challenged to reach their true potential and be ready for the next stage in their education. We want our children to believe in the transformative power of change and to ‘look to the future with hope’ in their hearts.

In mathematics we do this through:

• Providing an inspiring, engaging maths curriculum that is progressive and builds upon previous learning and sparks curiosity and nurtures confidence

• Building a maths curriculum which ensures full coverage of the National Curriculum, develops learning and results in the acquisition of knowledge and skills that enable children to be mathematicians

• Enabling children to develop fluent conceptual understanding in each area and apply their knowledge to be able to reason and problem solve, delving deeper into their learning (Deeper Thinking)

• A concrete, pictorial, abstract approach provides children with a clear structure in which they can develop their depth of understanding of mathematical concepts.

• Incorporating cross-curricular links in maths, to ensure that areas of the curriculum feed into, enhance one another and join together to build a ‘bigger picture’ understanding

• Encouraging children to demonstrate their mathematical knowledge and skills

• Enhancing children’s outcomes across the school

• Providing opportunities for learning about different mathematicians and their careers as part of cultural capital and enrichment

• Develop children’s ability to articulate, discuss and explain their thinking using appropriate mathematical vocabulary – speak like mathematicians. 

2. Unlocking children’s true social and emotional potential to ensure that they ‘flourish’ as unique, well-rounded individuals.

We aim to foster happy and healthy children, within a safe environment, who are given the help they need to learn, grow and achieve as much as they possibly can in an atmosphere which nourishes a healthy mind and body. We want our children to believe that each one of them holds the power to make a difference in the world through ‘doing all of the good they can.’ 

In mathematics we do this through:

• Pupil voice about maths

• British values

• Children will learn lessons in maths which will influence the decisions they make in their lives today and in the future, e.g. money, percentages of amounts, etc.

• Providing opportunities to work together in pairs or small groups

• Encouraging children to apply their own intuitive feelings and check against what they have learnt to make sense of the world, e.g. through problem-solving in different contexts and through feeling a sense of achievement in solving problems

• Maths days in which we study specific mathematicians and their careers, e.g. Alan Turing.

3. Unlocking children’s true potential to ‘flourish’ as life-long learners through raising individual expectations, self-belief and exposure to ‘opportunity’

We aim to help our children to be aware of and see ‘opportunity’ beyond their locality and starting points through exposure to the wider world. We aim to provide a broad, balanced curriculum with a wide variety of experiences which nurture the talents and interests of our children enabling them to become resilient, creative, enquiring learners and effective communicators who persevere and aspire for excellence.

In mathematics we do this through:

• A range of manipulatives for children to secure conceptual understanding

• Key knowledge and skills are also revisited regularly allowing repetition to embed learning.

• A range of reasoning and problem-solving opportunities in different contexts.

• Opportunities to learn about maths and apply the skills within a wider context alongside other curriculum subjects

• Enabling children to better make sense of the world around them by making connections between mathematics and everyday life.

• Visitors to school from local/global partnerships/companies. e.g. HSBC bank

• Building resilience - children see mistakes as learning tools – children are encouraged to take risks

• Working together/team work skills to solve problems

4. For our children to ‘do all of the good they can’ by broadening their horizons and developing each of them as a responsible local and global citizen. 

We want our children to appreciate their role as part of our community. We encourage them to ask questions, make informed choices and to take responsibility for the decisions they make. As a result we hope to foster in our children an awareness of the difference they can make as local & global citizens, treating others with compassion and respect.

In mathematics we do this through:

• Enabling children to better make sense of the world around them by making connections between mathematics and everyday life

• Maths days to learn about different mathematicians and their careers

• Developing an understanding of how maths can be used in the work place, e.g. role play areas in EYFS to learn about and take on the role of people in our community (money, weighing scales, etc.) 

• Asking questions to learn more, make links, identify patterns, etc.

• Children develop a ‘Can do’ attitude

• Experience of listening to others and considering different viewpoints

• Planned opportunities to learn Science within a wider context alongside other Curriculum subjects – e.g STEM

• Governors who liaise with the subject leader to monitor and improve standards.

Maths Curriculum Intent Map East Halton PDF

[pdf 543KB]