About Our Maths Curriculum
At The Colman Schools, we use the Mathematics Mastery programme. This approach has three key principles:
- Deep understanding
- Mathematical thinking
- Language with problem solving at the heart of our curriculum.
Instead of learning mathematical procedures by rote, we want pupils to build a deep conceptual knowledge and understanding.
The Maths Mastery curriculum is designed to make sure that the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum for England are fully met.
The National Curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
- Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
- Solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions. (NC 2014)
The curriculum is cumulative – each school year begins with a focus on ‘Place Value’ which is applied throughout the curriculum. A crucial part of a ‘deep understanding’ in maths is being able to represent ideas in many different ways.
We adopt a CPA (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract) using objects and pictures to represent abstract concepts which is essential to achieving mastery.
We believe it is essential for pupils to become independent thinkers in and out of the classroom in order to fully master mathematical concepts.