At Balfour Primary School we use a mastery approach to the teaching of mathematics and embrace the idea that all children can do well in maths.  All children are taught one set of mathematical concepts and the big ideas in mathematics and we recognise that all children need a deep understanding of the mathematics they are learning in order that future learning is built upon firm foundations.  We have high expectations of our children and strive to make the mathematics curriculum accessible to all.  Maths lessons are carefully crafted, in order to allow all pupils to access these mathematical concepts and ideas and explore the rich connections between them.  Our Maths Lead is an NCETM Primary Mastery Specialist and an NCETM Primary Maths PD Lead and is involved in leading workgroups with the local Mathshubs, this year working with schools on the NCETM Sustaining Mastery Programme.

As a whole school, we continue on our mastery journey through to the new academic year 2021-2022, carefully adapting how we plan, using small steps to support the children with the content and skills missed from previous year groups due to school closures and national lockdowns.  We continue to plan using a range of high quality resources, such as the White Rose premium resources and Nrich, alongside the new NCETM Curriculum Prioritisation Materials (from September 2021) which outline the maths specific subject and pedagogical knowledge within the NCETM professional development materials and the DfE Non-Statutory Mathematics Guidance. 

This resource provides coherent sequencing for the primary maths curriculum. It draws together the DfE guidance on curriculum prioritisation, with the high quality professional development and classroom resources provided by the NCETM Primary Mastery PD materials.

https://www.ncetm.org.uk/classroom-resources/cp-curriculum-prioritisation-in-primary-maths/

For each of the year groups 1-6, there is a mapping of the year’s curriculum into around a dozen units. Follow the links to the whole school and year group overviews at the bottom of the page.

Each step builds carefully from the previous step, building on pupils’ prior knowledge to develop new skills.  Planning for long term memory includes regular spaced, interleaved retrieval tasks such as ‘Flashback 4’ – a question from last lesson, last week, last term, last year and low-stakes quizzes.

We continue to use the calculation policies from the White Rose SOL.  These ensure consistency of the models and images used to support the teaching of different concepts through the school as well as showing the progression in calculation methods.

Please see the glossary at the back of each calculation policy, where you will find a clear explanation of the key mathematical vocabulary that we use throughout the school.