At King Athelstan we love maths and see it as an essential life skill. We are committed to ensuring that children have a positive and meaningful experience of mathematics throughout the school. Concrete resources/manipulatives will be used in lessons and be readily available throughout lessons to support understanding for children of all abilities and all ages.
All our maths lesson follow a teaching for mastery approach so that children are given opportunities to master maths topics, developing a deeper and secure understanding of each area of learning. Each lesson is carefully designed to teach all children the same learning through a concrete, pictorial and abstract series of steps to ensure understanding is secure. Children who need extending further will be challenged through targeted questioning and “diving deepers”. Diving deepers are questions allowing children to use their higher order thinking skills and independence, and therefore deepening their understanding by having to explain and reason. The beginning of each lesson will focus on fluency of number facts and calculations to support the development of the mental skills, which children can then use and apply in all other maths topics. The children will be asked key questions such as “How do you know?” “What do you notice?” to develop their understanding. When responding to questions, they are encouraged and expected to answer in full sentences using stem sentences such as ‘I know….because…’ to ensure they have a clear understanding and it supports mathematical discussions between peers with a shared language.
Click here for our maths skills progression
We use White Rose Maths to support our planning. There are resources available for parents/carers to use at home too. Please click here for resources.
The times tables are the basics of maths. If you know the basics, you’ll find the rest much easier.
The National Curriculum 2014 states that by the end of Year 4 every child must know their multiplication and division facts up to 12.
Year 2 – 2s, 5s and 10s
Year 3 – 3s, 4s and 8s
When it comes to times tables, speed AND accuracy are important – the more facts you remember, the easier it is to do harder calculations.
The Department of Education will be requiring schools in England to administer an online Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) with Year 4 pupils as statutory assessment in the 2021/22 academic year.
KIRF have been designed to support the development of the mental skills that underpin much of the maths work in schools. This is part of a national drive to improve mental maths. Every half term, each year group will have a focus and by the end of each half term, children should know those facts. The aim is for them to recall these facts instantly. It is expected that the children will learn and practise these in school AND at home. See the attachments at the bottom of this page for all the KIRFs for each year group each term.
Below you will find a document for each half term with what the KIRF looks like, some examples of the type of questions and vocabulary expected and resources you can use to help support you children in learning that KIRF. Some children may not be yet secure with the previous year's KIRF and therefore will be working on those instead, until they are ready to move on. We will send a reminder each half term.
At King Athelstan we recognise that children need a range of calculation strategies which are efficient, accurate and reliable. Our calculation policy incorporates how methods are taught through the use of concrete resources, pictorial representations and then abstract, to enable children to calculate confidently. Some of these methods will look different to the methods you were taught as a child. Please feel free to come in and ask questions about the methods we are using. The policies are attached below.
Calculation policy for addition
Calculation policy for subtraction
Calculation policy for multiplication
Calculation policy for division
At King Athelstan we monitor the children's progress carefully and organise interventions for those children finding the subject challenging and/or have a daily catch up session about the lesson that has taken place.
Every parent and carer can do their bit to help inspire their children to be successful in maths:
Click here for half termly KIRF for each year group:
Click the image to access TT Rockstars:
We use TimesTables RockStars which is fun and challenging way to practise tables independently and against your peers and other schools. Year 2 to 6 have their own logins.
Click here to find details of how to log in.
Click the picture to access Numbots:
NumBots is an online resource where children can practise their number recognition, number bonds, addition and subtraction skills, so that these become fluent and they can leave their fingers behind.
Click here to find details of how to log in.
Both NumBots and TTRS use the same login details.
Click the image to access j2e:
j2e is a collection of online educational tools specifically designed to engage, motivate and inspire. j2e is an online, fun, creative environment. Play j2blast supports children’s fluency with their arithmetic and times tables. Enjoy using any of the other toolkits too. Nursery to Year 6 will have logons for this.
Please come and speak to your class teacher if you are having any difficulty accessing your account.
Click here to see:
Another fun website to where you can practise your maths skills is Busy Things:
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