Harlowbury Primary School

	"Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations or algorithms:  It is about understanding." William Paul Thurston

We aim to develop young mathematicians who have an understanding of the world, who can reason mathematically and can appreciate the beauty and power of mathematics and who have a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

The quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak are key factors in developing their mathematical vocabulary and presenting a mathematical justification, argument or proof.  As a school, we use the Word Aware approach to ensure new vocabulary is developed and understood and so the children can master it.  Children are assisted in making their thinking clear to themselves as well as others and adults ensure that pupils build secure foundations by using discussion to probe and remedy their misconceptions. 

 Manipulatives are used in all year groups and across all abilities to allow the children to deepen their thinking, explain their ideas and draw conclusions.  The Concrete – Pictorial - Abstract approach is used throughout the school.

 All children are challenged appropriately with the Dive Deeper approach used to extend those quicker at calculating.

 Cross-curricular links are key to embed and enhance learning. Maths provides the skills for children to be able to generate ‘real’ data for use in data handling, sorting and classifying in Science, Computing and Foundation subjects as well as depending their understanding of places and chronology in History and Geography.   Their measuring and accuracy are further developed in DT, ART and Science topics.

 Across the school we follow the three aims of the national curriculum for mathematics 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 nonroutine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.