Maths
Mathematics Curriculum Intent
At Bottesford Junior School, we are committed to providing a comprehensive mathematics curriculum that caters to the diverse needs of all students. Our aim is to equip children with the essential skills and knowledge required for success in their subsequent educational journey and in life. We implement a flexible curriculum that focuses on building strong foundational knowledge, alongside developing students’ ability to apply this understanding to problem-solving and reasoning tasks.
To support this, we use a wide range of concrete, pictorial, and abstract resources, ensuring that children have access to the appropriate tools for successful learning. Additionally, our curriculum encourages students to relate mathematical concepts to the world around them, helping them recognise patterns and connections in everyday life.
We place significant emphasis on oracy as an essential life skill. Our goal is to cultivate a vocabulary-rich environment where children have ample opportunities to orally rehearse mathematical concepts. This practice further enhances their understanding and allows them to articulate their reasoning and problem-solving approaches. Students are also encouraged to identify and explore patterns within mathematics, making connections across different subjects.
Our approach to teaching mathematics follows a ‘Bronze, Silver, and Gold’ structure, where questions progress in difficulty. The ‘Bronze’ level provides students with opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge using concrete and pictorial resources. The ‘Silver’ level emphasizes fluency, while the ‘Gold’ level challenges students to apply their knowledge to reasoning and worded problems. Following this, children are encouraged to engage in deeper thinking, applying their skills to complex reasoning and problem-solving scenarios.
At Bottesford Junior school, we place great importance on ensuring that students have a strong grasp of their basic mathematical skills and knowledge. To support this, we deliver weekly arithmetic lessons that focus on reinforcing and embedding essential methods. Additionally, daily times table practice is incorporated into the curriculum to develop students’ automaticity and pattern recognition, further enhancing their mathematical fluency.
By the end of KS2, a Bottesford Junior School Mathematician will:
- Confidently apply the basic arithmetic operations.
- Fluently recall times tables.
- Understand place value and use It to calculate.
- Apply mathematical concepts to real-world situations.
- Use reasoning to explain solutions.
- Identify patterns and relationships in numbers and shapes.
- Solve multi-step problems involving reasoning.