At Elm Tree, we have created a unique and individualised approach to teaching maths to ensure learning is fun, enjoyable and challenging for all of our pupils. Children are taught through targeted differentiated small group teaching, so that each child makes progress at their own pace. This ensures that every child achieves within each lesson. The purpose of teaching maths at Elm Tree is to teach children skills and knowledge in order for them to follow the adventures they wish to take in their future life. We follow an ‘’I do, we do, you do’ approach to learning new ideas using modelling, shared modelling and independent practice to launch our learning.  This is used as immediate assessment for learning for all children to ensure children progress quickly when learning is embedded and get immediate support if learning needs to be revisited.

Every class within the school follows the White Rose Long Term Plan, which is based around the National Curriculum as starting point, but we use our PIXL assessments and analysis to focus on areas that need to be visited so overviews are reviewed at least half termly. We believe that children should be exposed to a variety of styles of questioning therefore we use a range of resources when planning daily maths lessons. We have a range of resources readily available to teachers including White Rose, Deepening Understanding, Nrich, NCETM Spines and Teach Active.

Children’s fluency is developed on a daily basis at Elm Tree in a number of ways. Every day, children will have a Maths Meeting, whereby each child is given the opportunity to practise their arithmetic skills. Often, these will be tailored for each class by the teacher based on their assessment of children’s learning throughout the course of the week.  Following our curriculum mantra ‘I know this so now I can learn that’ we use weekly ‘sticky knowledge’ assessments to see what children have retained from this week, last week, last month, last year.  In order to improve children’s recall of multiplication facts, times tables are practised each morning. There are tournaments and battles each half term to encourage children to practise at home as well as in school.

Through discussions with pupils, we have discovered that children find this individualised approach to maths exciting and engaging. Children speak enthusiastically about their love of learning in maths at Elm Tree. Teachers strive to ensure all children feel challenged and supported in each maths lesson.