Mathematics

"Success in mathematics is achieved through high expectations, carefully designed learning and the belief that every child can succeed."

Our Vision

At Abingdon Primary School, we believe that every child can achieve and succeed in mathematics.

Mathematics is a powerful tool that enables children to make sense of the world around them. It equips them with the knowledge, confidence and resilience needed to solve problems, think critically and make informed decisions throughout their lives. We believe that mathematical success is not determined by innate ability but is achieved through high-quality teaching, carefully sequenced learning and the belief that every pupil is capable of deep mathematical understanding.

Our vision is to nurture confident, curious and resilient mathematicians who are willing to explore ideas, explain their thinking, learn from mistakes and embrace challenge. We strive to create classrooms where mathematical discussion is valued, misconceptions are seen as opportunities for learning and every child feels successful.

Through our Teaching for Mastery approach, children develop secure conceptual understanding alongside procedural fluency, enabling them to reason mathematically, solve increasingly sophisticated problems and make rich connections across different areas of mathematics.

We aim to ensure that every child leaves our school with both the mathematical knowledge and the confidence to apply it successfully in secondary education and beyond.

Our Intent

Our mathematics curriculum has been carefully designed to provide every pupil with a coherent, ambitious and inclusive mathematical education.

The curriculum is built upon:

• the National Curriculum for England (2014)
• the NCETM Teaching for Mastery principles
• the NCETM Curriculum Prioritisation materials
• the NCETM Curriculum Matching Documents
• the DfE Ready-to-Progress Criteria

These documents work together to ensure that learning is carefully sequenced so that new knowledge builds logically upon prior understanding.

Rather than viewing mathematics as a collection of isolated skills, we teach pupils to recognise patterns, identify structures and make meaningful connections between mathematical concepts.

Our curriculum enables pupils to:

• develop secure conceptual understanding before moving to abstract procedures;
• become fluent through intelligent practice rather than repetition alone;
• reason mathematically by explaining, convincing and justifying;
• solve increasingly complex problems using a range of efficient strategies;
• communicate using precise mathematical vocabulary;
• make connections across different areas of mathematics;
• become independent, resilient and reflective learners.

 Our Teaching for Mastery Philosophy

At Abingdon Primary School, we believe that mathematics is for everyone.

Our teaching is underpinned by the belief that, with excellent teaching and carefully designed learning experiences, nearly all pupils can achieve age-related expectations and experience success in mathematics.

We therefore adopt a Teaching for Mastery approach where:

• concepts are taught in depth before moving on;
• pupils learn together as a whole class wherever appropriate;
• carefully chosen representations and manipulatives reveal mathematical structure;
• variation is used to deepen understanding;
• mathematical discussion is central to every lesson;
• misconceptions are anticipated and addressed through responsive teaching;
• challenge comes through greater depth of thinking rather than acceleration through new content.

We recognise that pupils learn at different rates and may require different levels of support. Adaptive teaching enables all pupils to access the same ambitious mathematical ideas while ensuring that support and challenge are responsive to individual need.

Our Core Beliefs

We believe...

• Every child can learn mathematics.
• Understanding is more important than memorising procedures.
• Fluency grows from understanding.
• Mathematical talk deepens thinking.
• Mistakes are valuable opportunities for learning.
• Representations should reveal mathematical structure.
• Assessment should inform teaching, not simply measure attainment.
• Challenge is achieved through depth, not speed.
• High expectations are for every learner.
• Professional collaboration improves teaching and learning.

What We Want Every Child to Become

By the time pupils leave Abingdon Primary School, we want every child to be:

• Confident in tackling unfamiliar mathematical problems.
• Fluent in recalling and applying key mathematical knowledge.
• Curious about patterns, structures and relationships.
• Resilient when faced with challenge.
• Articulate, able to explain and justify their thinking using mathematical language.
• Independent, selecting efficient strategies and appropriate representations.
• Prepared for the mathematical demands of secondary education and everyday life.

Each child in Reception and KS1 has a Numbots login to practice number facts and operations at home and all children also have Times Tables Rockstars logins to play in school and at home. 

Click the link to play! https://play.ttrockstars.com/

Click here for National Curriculum Guidance

Files to Download