Why Teach Mathematics?
Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.
Aims of the new national curriculum
The national curriculum for mathematics 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.
- Can 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.
The teaching of mathematics at St. Catherine’s School is geared towards enabling each pupil to develop their learning without labelling them by ability. We endeavour to not only develop the mathematics skills and understanding required for later life, but also an enthusiasm and fascination about maths itself.
We aim to increase pupil confidence in maths so they are able to express themselves and their ideas using the language of maths with assurance.
We recognise the importance of developing factual, procedural and conceptual knowledge.
TTRS
TTRS Gone Green Certificates
We are delighted to inform you, that we are now presenting TTRS ‘Gone Green’ certificates. For your child to be able to receive this certificate, they need to turn their heat map green. A totally green heatmap means that your child has consistently answered all facts in 4 seconds or less. Your child must answer each fact at least 10 times in any game mode (apart from Jamming) at 4 seconds or less before it will turn green on their heatmap. Your child will earn this certificate once only, when they have turned their heatmap totally green.
NumBots
We are very excited to have launched NumBots with our Reception children at St Catherine’s. It is an online learning platform that we are using to support children’s understanding of number bonds and to help their addition and subtraction skills. These are the essential building blocks for higher-level maths concepts, so we are excited by the impact that NumBots will have on our children’s learning.
As the children progress through the levels in ‘Story Mode,’ the emphasis is on learning the ideas and concepts behind addition and subtraction so it features more diagrams, representations and question styles. Children earn coins and experience and then the questions become progressively harder. Later on, the children can use ‘Challenge Mode,’ the emphasis is more on speed of recall of key facts, like number bonds to 10, doubling small numbers or adding and taking away in their head.
In order to get the best out of NumBots, we recommend that children play regularly for short bursts at a time, aiming for three minutes a day, four times a week. Little and often practise is often more effective than very long sessions.
For more information, please watch the short video links
Nursery – Number blocks series 1 overview
Nursery – Number blocks series 2 overview
Nursery – Number blocks series 3 overview
Maths Workshop Progression of Skills Multiplication and Division
Maths Workshop Progression of Skills Addition and Subtraction
Our latest activities page will be updated frequently, so please visit regularly:
