At Ellingham Primary School, we value mathematics as a core subject which is essential to everyday life. We follow a mastery approach and work closely with our local Maths Hub to enable pupils of all ages  can acquire a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of maths.  

Factual fluency is prioritised in all year groups and by following a high-quality, mastery programme of study, we endeavour to provide children with the skills necessary to succeed as they progress through our school and beyond. 

Factual Fluency 

• Years 3-6 use Number Sense and their Times Tables Fluency Programme to deliver daily factual fluency sessions. This enables pupils to build a deep understanding of number and number relationships and develop fluency in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts and concepts. Our curriculum is designed to achieve fluency for every child without exception.

Daily maths lessons

• We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to problem solve and reason mathematically. At Ellingham, we follow the NCETM spines to deliver a coherent and sequential curriculum based on small step progression. You can find out more about what we teach in each year group by clicking on our Maths Policy below.

Maths Mastery

Mastering maths means pupils of all ages acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject.

The phrase ‘teaching for mastery’ describes the elements of classroom practice and school organisation that combine to give pupils the best chances of mastering maths. Achieving mastery means acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that’s been taught to enable pupils to move on to the next small step of progression.

Underpinning principles

•Mathematics teaching for mastery assumes everyone can learn and enjoy mathematics

•Mathematical learning behaviours are developed such that pupils focus and engage fully as learners who reason and seek to make connections

•Teachers continually develop their specialist knowledge for teaching mathematics, working collaboratively to refine and improve their teaching

•Curriculum design ensures a coherent and detailed sequence of essential content to support sustained progression over time

In the classroom

•Pupils are taught through whole-class interactive teaching, enabling all to master the concepts necessary for the next part of the curriculum sequence

•In a typical lesson, the teacher leads back and forth interaction, including questioning, short tasks, explanation, demonstration, and discussion, enabling pupils to think, reason and apply their knowledge to solve problems

•Use of precise mathematical language enables all pupils to communicate their reasoning and thinking effectively

•Significant time is spent developing deep understanding of the key ideas that are needed to underpin future learning through the use of small step planning and teaching.