Maths

Maths Intent Statement

We intend that our curriculum supports our Trust ambition of ‘achieving more together’.  We do this by providing students with a comprehensive understanding of the mathematical knowledge and ideas that impact them as individuals within a local and globalised context. As they journey through our curriculum, our students are increasingly supported in developing their curiosity, provided with insight into working mathematically and to develop an appreciation for the value of mathematics in their everyday lives. We deliver a framework for understanding the world around them and promote an awareness for the interaction between mathematics and the links with other subjects.

In mathematics, we deliver a curriculum structure with a variety of activities to encourage the love of maths. Students develop a good understanding and use of mathematical language and numeracy, and this premise provides grounded guidance as they navigate through quantitative challenges. We encourage our students to become more aware of the world around them using the curriculum to enhance awareness of the accuracy of mathematics and especially data in the local and global contexts. They develop new skills through a variety of problem-solving activities to ensure engagement and improve their social and moral understanding of the world. Our curriculum is built around core knowledge and our lessons develop retrieval of information overtime and enable the students to link this content to the world around them. By studying mathematics, our students develop an in-depth understanding of how major mathematical breakthroughs and study have played a vital role in developing the world around them, including most of the technology they often can take for granted. We also encourage them to realise mathematics is not an ancient subject but has very real modern applications.

To ensure any gaps in prior or new knowledge are quickly identified, we check progress frequently through a range of assessment opportunities, from lesson-by-lesson declarative knowledge tests, end of topic tests that assess knowledge retention and application, to more cumulative common assessments that assess students’ ability to remember and apply knowledge in a range of contexts.  The information from these assessments is used to adapt the curriculums intending to quickly close gaps in knowledge and keep students on track to achieve at our ambitious academic grades.

At KS3 we deliver a curriculum that begins their journey by assessing and consolidating the foundations of maths, developing a deeper understanding of numbers and how they are manipulated and employed. They then progress through the curriculum learning about the practical uses of number probability and shape. From this secure base, they start to engage with more complex topics such as algebra and three-dimensional structure and measurements. The collection and analysing of data lends itself to them taking more of an interest in media and how statistics are reported and presented. This is developed into higher mathematical thinking involving basic trigonometry and awareness of the relationship between angles and shape. The curriculum leads into more diverse methods of manipulating numbers such as fractions, decimals and percentages. All these can be used to further develop the knowledge of probability and statistical analysis. These skill sets are then utilised to improve and increase their use and knowledge of algebra, data and geometry. Sequences are key in understanding how patterns and numbers occur in the environment and how they are employed and forecast.

At KS4 their skills are moved forward into fields such as transformations and how a mathematical change can affect a two-dimensional object. This knowledge is applied to graphs and how changes in data and formulae can have a predictable effect on graphs of all types. From there we develop mathematical thinking of how algebra in the form of inequalities does not always have a definitive answer, a key part of mathematics. Proportion and ratio are one of the many fields that is applied on a regular basis outside the classroom, and a deeper understanding of the process and maths behind this is key to their development. Moving toward the end of KS4, we investigate trigonometry further and how that applies to the practical world and problem solving, along with the more complex shapes that are common in architecture and engineering. Probability knowledge is improved, so it becomes possible to forecast more accurately expected outcomes.

As a core subject, Mathematics should be valued by all students. We aim to persuade them not just with our curriculum content but by encouraging cross-curricular links and showing these links between the humanities and sciences and arts. Problem solving is a large part of mathematics and this is taught and shown as a fully transferable skill across their curriculum. Collaborative working encourages teamwork and consultation, as well as enhancing social skills such as tolerance and understanding different viewpoints from their own. The ability to look at data encourages them to become more inquisitive about the world around them, increasing their ability to healthily debate rather than tacit acceptance of information presented to them. Accurate recording of information and numbers also assist in developing retention techniques for wider use.