Mathematics

Our Maths curriculum is taught so that we provide the children with a purposeful, engaging curriculum. We follow the National Curriculum as a guide and ensure the learning follows the children’s interest.

Number is a very abstract concept to learn, to combat this we structure our learning from concrete objects making sure that the children fully understand the objective that they are learning before moving on to pictorial and then finally on to abstract numbers. This process, we believe, enables all children to access and thrive within all of our maths lessons.

Concrete

In the concrete stage we use a range of manipulatives to help the children understand the fundamental knowledge within the National Curriculum Objective. We believe that the tactile manipulation of objects enables the children to understand the concept without having to also understand the barrier of numbers to contend with as well. It is important though, that the children use the numbers alongside to see the connection between the numbers and the concepts.

Pictorial

In the pictorial stage the children move on from manipulatives. They will use visual representations of the concrete objects they used to model the concept they are learning and model questions. This is the stage that helps the children to create a connection between the tactile and the abstract numbers or diagrams that represent the questions or problems.

Abstract

The final stage of the children’s learning is the abstract phase. This is the traditional number problems and questions that maths uses. Students will not move on to this stage if the teacher does not know that they show a solid understand of the concept through the abstract and the pictorial. The children will only use numbers and symbols to represent their work.