Mathematics at Dovecot Primary School

Mathematics helps children to make sense of the world around them through developing their ability to calculate, to reason and to solve problems.  It enables children to understand and appreciate relationships and pattern in both number and space in their everyday lives.  Through their growing knowledge and understanding, children learn to appreciate the contribution made by many cultures to the development and application of mathematics.

Click here and watch a video about maths in Dovecot

To ensure consistency of coverage, standards and expectations, we use the Liverpool planning documents: Curriculum objectives Y1 - 6;  EYFS Maths resource; Calculation Policy. This secures progression within each year, and ensures smooth transition between year groups.

The re-application of taught skills elsewhere in the curriculum has a high priority at Dovecot. The children are becoming adept at spotting when they are using mathematics in other subjects, and identifying it with stickers which say: 'Here's the maths in that...'

What is ‘Mastery’?

When taught to mastery maths, children develop their conceptual and procedural fluency without having to resort to rote learning. As a result, they are able to solve non-routine problems in unfamiliar contexts without relying on memorised procedures. 

We all learn together…

In maths lessons at Dovecot, where possible, the whole class moves through topics and concepts at broadly the same pace. We spend a longer time on key mathematical topics and concepts in order to give all learners both the practice and depth of understanding they need. We believe that all pupils can access and understand the full mathematics curriculum. There is nobody who ‘can’t do maths’.

We challenge pupils by asking them to explore mathematical concepts in more depth rather than accelerate them onto new content. This has been found to have real benefits to children’s ability to access more complex mathematical ideas as they get older.

We learn deeply…

We give our pupils enough time to explore core concepts and ideas in mathematics at a deep level in order to foster their relational understanding. This slower pace and focus on depth eventually leads to greater progress because it gives all learners the chance to become secure in their understanding. As a result, each year we are able to build new learning onto children’s existing knowledge re-visit learning from previous years when deemed necessary.

We use representations…

At Dovecot we use concrete apparatus (resources pupils can touch, hold and manipulate) and visual representations (images they can see) to help children to visualise and internalise mathematical concepts. This allows them to access, conceptualise and solve problems. Through the consistent use of these apparatus and representation, our pupils gain confidence as independent learners to use resources and solve problems.

As you might expect, mathematics is a very important subject at primary school. It is usually taught in specific lessons, but children practise and use their maths throughout the school day, and beyond it.

Below are links to several sites for parental guidance and support (including the Oxford Owl website) which provide advice that will help you to make sense of the different terminology used, and appreciate how maths is being taught.  In addition, there other useful sites which will enable children to re-apply their learnt skills outside the classroom.