Maths
At Holland House School, we want every child to develop a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about Mathematics. We believe this is vital, as Mathematics is a key skill within school and a life skill to be utilised throughout our daily lives both as children and as adults; this is why we ensure children are taught Mathematics across the curriculum in a creative way so that they can see the importance of Maths. We endeavour to ensure that children develop a positive and enthusiastic attitude towards Mathematics so that they can use and apply their skills confidently; we do this through a rich and rounded curriculum which is designed to broaden children’s experiences meeting their individual needs. Children are given opportunities to develop their fluency, which enhances their conceptual understanding through lots of practical experiences including play, investigations and problem solving; this helps them to reason about number and to answer the big questions. We believe it is key children secure their understanding of number so that they can continue to develop as Mathematicians when they leave Holland House to go to the junior school in Year 3.
- Numicon
- Cubes
- Counters
- Dienes
Mathematical concepts are taught through modelling and demonstrating; children are encouraged to use a wide range of concrete objects to support their conceptual understanding.
When the children are ready they are then taught to use pictorial representation to support their understanding of key concepts before moving on to the abstract form of number.
This enables them to understand the concept rather than just developing the strategy.
Throughout lessons, children are encouraged to reason, explore, explain and discuss a wide range of problems and strategies.
Maths activities are directly linked to a learning objective which has clearly identified success criteria. These learning objectives are shared with the children at the start of their learning helping them to understand what they are learning and therefore make maximum progress within the lesson. Activities are often practical and may be recorded in books. They may also be problem solving activities or completed using ICT. This helps to create a rich rounded engaging maths curriculum that inspires all children.
Times Tables
The teaching and learning of times tables is crucial as it supports many areas of the maths curriculum. Children are encouraged to learn their times tables at home as well as at school and regular practice is important. By the end of year 2 age related expectations are that children should know their 2, 5 and 10 times tables by heart. Children are initially taught multiplication as repeated addition which quickly moves to pictorial arrays and then groups of.
