Our ambition, at St Paul’s, is for our children to have a love of mathematics; creativity and the ability to reason and solve problems in mathematics and other subjects, as well as in ‘real life’.  We aim for our children to be strong communicators: proficiently using mathematical vocabulary both orally and in writing, and demonstrating the use of models and representations to support their reasoning. We strive for our children to be happy, confident, competent and independent learners - fluent mathematicians, who can recall and apply mathematical skills, knowledge and conceptual understanding in a range of contexts.

At St Paul’s, we acknowledge the importance of mathematics to our child’s future. The subject impacts everyday life, is fundamental to science, technology and engineering, essential for financial literacy and necessary for most forms of employment. We want every child to acquire basic mathematical concepts and computational skills and have the self-confidence and resilience to meet their full potential.

To ensure consistency and progression, we use the Power Maths and White Rose Maths resources, their textbooks are recommended by the Department of Education and are fully in line with delivering a mastery approach. The scheme has been written to comprehensively deliver the National Curriculum for KS1 & KS2 mathematics, and to support every child's journey to develop deeper mathematical understanding through the careful sequencing of concepts, small step learning points and rehearsal in order for children to embed learning to their long term memory.

Each day, there is a focus on developing fluency and embedding learning to long term memory. These opportunities, known as ‘Mini Maths Moments’,  maximise learning time and take place during transitions, when children move from the carpet to tables or vice versa, line up for playtime etc. The children repeatedly practise their recall of facts such as chanting times tables, counting backwards or forwards from different starting points and steps eg. 0, 5,10,15… thereby strengthening their fluency and freeing up their working memory so that it can focus on solving mathematical problems.  In addition, in Key Stage 2, there is a particular focus on times tables; children daily complete 5 minute rapid recall times tables tasks. 

In Reception and Key Stage One, Power Maths deliberately focuses on foundational knowledge, particularly proficiency in number as this gives pupils the ability to progress through the curriculum at increasing rates in later years.  Therefore, the curriculum is designed to focus on depth over breadth, covering fewer topics but in more detail.

During lessons, the large majority of children progress through the curriculum content at the same pace. Challenge and support for pupils is achieved by emphasising deep knowledge and through individual support and intervention  approach.   All lessons include a fluency activity to sustain prior learning, consolidate number facts and build confidence. New concepts are shared within the context of an initial problem, which children are able to discuss in partners. This initial problem-solving activity prompts discussion and reasoning, highlighting the significance and usefulness of mathematics in relatable real-life contexts which link to other areas of learning. In each lesson, children are exposed to and solve problems through a CPA approach (concrete resources, pictorial representations and abstract thinking) which is a system of learning that uses physical and visual aids to build a child's understanding of abstract topics. Careful questioning is used to develop pupils' ability to orally explain their thinking and reasoning, make links and use precise mathematical vocabulary. Teachers model strategies to solve problems using concrete resources, a variety of representations and abstract methods, and discuss strategies used by children as well as link new and prior learning.  Children then progress to their independent work, where each question varies one small element to move children on in their thinking. Children complete intelligent practice independently, including a challenge, and ending in a ‘reflect’ section which tests children’s depth of  understanding . For children who are quick to grasp new content, on offer are a range of problems including exploratory, investigative tasks, within the lesson as appropriate.   

As a result, our children will become fluent and confident mathematicians, who enjoy and are curious to learn more about the subject. They will be resilient, enthusiastic and competent mathematical problem solvers, able to apply their skills and knowledge within mathematics lessons, across the curriculum and in real life. Our children will have a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards mathematics and see mistakes as an opportunity to learn. The majority of children will consistently achieve age related expectations and above and will be well equipped and ready for the next stage of their learning journey.

Long term plans, showing the progression of skills and knowledge and the content taught in mathematics can be found below:

Calculation policies, which show the methodology and models used, can be found below:

The following documents show the content taught each week in each year group:

The following documents show how Power Maths is linked to the National Curriculum: