At Shaftesbury, mathematics teaching focuses on enabling each pupil to develop skills, knowledge and understanding of mathematics as well as an enthusiasm and fascination about maths itself. We aim to equip our pupils with the tools which they can choose from depending on the context of the problem. We also aim to increase pupil confidence in maths so they are able to express their ideas using the language of maths with assurance.

Having fluency in number, through a sound knowledge of place value, the rapid recall of times tables up to 12 and applying this to create related multiplication and division facts is at the core of our vision.

One way in which we encourage children at Shaftesbury to develop their fluency in multiplication is with our times table challenge called Knights of the Times Tables. Each week a different times table is tested, if the children are successful twice in one week, they receive a sticker for their challenge record.

All of these elements steer towards ‘mastery’ where the focus is on creating as many relationships and links between the skills and concepts – depth as opposed to acceleration.

The teaching of mathematics at Shaftesbury provides opportunities for:

• Group work
• Paired work
• Whole class teaching
• Individual work

Pupils engage in:

• The development of mental strategies
• Written methods
• Practical work
• Investigational work
• Problem- solving
• Mathematical discussion
• Consolidation of basic skills and routines​

Please click on the attachment below to read about the Mathematics National Curriculum.