Mereworth Community Primary School

Maths | Whole School Overview

Whole School Maths LTP

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Mathematics

At Mereworth, we believe that Mathematics is a key skill and has an important part to play in our daily lives. It underpins many other areas of the Curriculum such as Geography, History, Science, Art, Design and Technology. Consequently, it is essential that Mathematics teaching and learning is engaging, meaningful to the World in which we live, and accessible to all of the children in School helping to engender a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about Mathematics.

We aim to develop independent learners that are able and confident to apply their Mathematic skills to a variety of scenarios to enable them to have a range of strategies and approaches to solving problems. All children need a deep understanding of the Mathematics they are learning, key measures of this are their ability to solve increasingly complex problems, doing so with fluency.

Mathematics National Curriculum

At Mereworth we have adopted a ‘mastery’ approach to the teaching, learning and assessment of Mathematics, underpinned by our Assessment system ; 21 Steps (please see link on our website). This ensures that children are able to master the curriculum and gain a thorough understanding of all topics covered.

At Mereworth we use the “Maths No Problem” programme of study and NCETM (‘National Centre of Excellence of Teaching Mathematics’) materials and resources to support the teaching of Mathematics in each year group.

We follow the 2014 National Curriculum for Mathematics which focuses on children:

becoming fluent in the fundamentals of Mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils have conceptual understanding and are able to recall and apply their knowledge rapidly and accurately to problems.
able to reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
solving 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.’

Maths No Problem Parent Videos

To find out more about the Maths No Problem approach, visit the following link:

Parent Videos

Supporting Parents with Maths at Mereworth

Emile Education Tournaments

Emile Education

The Emile range of resources had been developed by a group of teachers, academics and game developers. Together they developed and supply games-based learning resources to over 15% of the primary schools in the UK & Ireland. Their range of resources are all underpinned by robust pedagogical research and are tested rigorously by teachers in real classrooms.

Our children at Mereworth began competing in Emile Tournaments September 2022. Throughout our first academic year the number of children getting involved increased from one class to the whole school. Their number facts knowledge and times tables confidence progressed immensely, whilst the tournaments gave them a reason to practise and improve. The MTC tournaments resemble the same conditions of the Year 4 Multiplication Check, so is a great opportunity for them to practise their skills and speed.

Firstly, the children compete in the Regional Tournament against local schools. If they are successful enough on this leaderboard, usually second or first place, the children are placed into the National Finals the following week. The children have time in school on computers and have access to the school ipads to enhance their scores over the two days of competition, but can also access the platform at home.

Due to the amazing impact these tournaments have, they are getting more popular each year. There are thousands more children competing each tournament across the country. Mereworth children getting into the National Finals is an incredible achievement and we are incredibly proud of them.

The children’s enthusiasm and competitiveness steer the tournaments and this has greatly improved the fluency and automaticity of their times table and number knowledge. The children love the competitive element of the tournament and really try hard to rise to the challenge.