Our mathematics substantive concepts are taken from the National Curriculum (2014):

Fluency                Reasoning           Problem-Solving

At Barwell Academy we follow the principles of a ‘teaching for mastery’ approach.  By following this pedagogy, we believe that given the right circumstances all pupils can and will achieve in mathematics. For this to occur our teaching provides opportunities for all pupils to develop the depth and rigour they need to make secure and sustained progress overtime, regardless of whether they are disadvantaged or have a SEND difficulty. At Barwell Academy we proactively promote a ‘can do’ attitude to mathematics for all pupils through a set of ‘positive norms’ including the use of ‘yet’, depth of understanding before speed and learning by mistakes being valued.

To help us formulate a cohesive curriculum our school predominately uses a mixture of Maths No Problem and White Rose; together these curriculums provide an interconnected long-term plan. By using these high-quality planning schemes and materials teachers are able to focus on the teaching and learning which thus allowing mathematical connections to be built upon without causing cognitive overload.  

Our mathematics curriculum is divided up into cohesive year group journeys. Lessons are broken up into ‘manageable’ learning episodes and then into individual lessons. Lesson are presented in small steps usually focusing on one key concept - the lesson objective will be the concept.

The structure of our Maths lessons is deliberately designed to encourage pupils to describe, explain, justify, convince and/or prove. All pupils have many opportunities within a learning episode – in a lesson, within a unit – to reason and solve problems by applying their mathematical understanding to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including in unfamiliar contexts and to model real-life scenarios (Variation Theory).

Lessons integrate:

• Representation - Representations used in lessons expose the mathematical structure being taught, the aim being that students can do the maths without recourse to the representation.  

• CPA - concrete and pictorial representation are chosen carefully to help build procedural and conceptual knowledge together.

• Intelligent Practice - examples and tasks focus on developing conceptual understanding, practise the thinking process with increasing creativity and avoid mechanical repetition.
• Variation - Varitation is twofold. It is firstly about how the teacher represents the concept being taught, often in more than one way, to draw attention to critical aspects, and to develop deep and holistic understanding. It is also about the sequencing of the episodes, activities and exercises used within a lesson and follow up practice, paying attention to what is kept the same and what changes, to connect the mathematics and draw attention to mathematical relationships and structure.
• Challenge is provided by going deeper rather than accelerating too early into new mathematical content. This may be in the form of verbal questioning and ‘dong nao jin’ questions.
• Fluency – standalone fluency interventions that provide quick and efficient recall of facts and procedures and the flexibility to move between different contexts and representations of mathematics.

Our curriculum has also been adapted for online learning so if a pupil are absent from school due to events like the pandemic then work can be sent home electronically the next day thus allowing pupils to not fall behind.

Specific Year Group Content

Please note because we follow a mastery pedagogy that the exact timetable is a rough guide as to when each unit of work will be taught.

Year 3

We do not want to put a ceiling on our children’s learning.  It is imperative that all children, especially those with special education needs or disabilities, access an ambitious, broad, challenging and inspiring curriculum.  It should not be narrowed nor should the default position be to expect children not to be able to achieve.  High expectations of all of our children are at the heart of our vision and this of course includes all children and all areas of the curriculum.