At Holy Family, we use Power Maths because it provides a whole-class mastery approach to teaching mathematics, ensuring every child can succeed. Concepts are taught in small, cumulative steps so pupils develop a deep understanding before moving on. The scheme is aligned with White Rose progression and incorporates problem-solving activities to strengthen reasoning skills. Lessons follow a clear sequence – discover, share, think together, practice, reflect – promoting discussion, reasoning, and independent practice. Using the CPA (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract) approach, Power Maths builds strong conceptual understanding, supports all learners, and develops fluency, reasoning, and problem-solving across the curriculum.

At Holy Family we use a mastery approach for teaching Maths. Mastering maths means acquiring a deep, long term, secure, adaptable understanding of the subject. It is a way of encouraging children to love maths and to change the belief that a large proportion of people cannot do maths. It is a belief that all children can succeed if they work hard.

Mastery is about building firm foundations through fluency, reasoning and problem-solving. It is about extending children through depth rather than acceleration. This ensures that all children are challenged throughout a lesson.

With mastery, children are taught through whole class interactive teaching, where the focus is on all children working together on the same lesson at the same time. This ensures that all children can master concepts before moving on to the next part of the curriculum sequence, ensuring that no child is left behind. If a pupil fails to grasp a concept or procedure this can be identified quickly and early intervention ensures the pupil is ready to move forward with the whole class in the next session.

Significant time is spent developing deep knowledge of the key ideas that are needed to underpin future learning. The structure and connections within the mathematics are emphasised so that pupils develop deep learning that can be sustained.

Procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are developed together because each support the development of the other. Mastery recognises that practice is a vital part of learning, but the practice used is intelligent practice that both reinforces procedural fluency and develops their conceptual understanding.

We use the Power Maths scheme of work ensure progression, coverage and depth of knowledge for all learners. This maths programme follows a master approach to maths learning.

Maths mastery is an approach to teaching that gives pupils a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of mathematics. The concept of mastery has its roots in the mastery model developed in the late 1960s by Benjamin Bloom, an American educational psychologist.

The mastery approach shares some features with Bloom’s mastery model, such as the focus on a uniform degree of learning for all pupils and the desire for learners to achieve a deep understanding of mathematical concepts. There is also a strong focus on structure, early intervention and the consistent use of manipulatives.

The core elements of the UK approach to mastery, as succinctly outlined by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, are coherence, representation & structure, mathematical thinking, fluency and variation. More on that later.

Teaching for mastery differs in many key respects from more traditional methods, perhaps most fundamentally in the idea everyone can learn and everyone can do well. Teaching maths for mastery offers all pupils access to the full maths curriculum. This inclusive approach and its emphasis on promoting multiple methods of solving a single problem builds self-confidence and resilience in pupils.

With a mastery approach, the whole class moves through topics at broadly the same pace. Each topic is studied in depth and our teachers don't move to the next stage until all children demonstrate a secure understanding of mathematical concepts.

This approach encourages learners to share ideas and try out different ways of solving a problem. Learners are less reliant on the teacher — they work with different children, model answers in front of the class and ask each other when they’re not sure.

Although they don’t realise it, our learners quickly gain confidence during this type of lesson. They use mathematical vocabulary freely, don’t mind making mistakes and get used to explaining what they’re doing.

Key facts such as multiplication tables and addition facts within 10 are learnt to automatically to avoid cognitive overload in the working memory and enable pupils to focus on the new concepts. At Holy Family, we teach children calculations using a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach. It is vital that all children have access to these three methods so that they acquire deep understanding of mathematics.

Early Years

Mathematics in the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum comes under two strands, each of which has an Early Learning Goal attached:

Number - Early Learning Goal

• Have a deep understanding of number10, including the composition of each number
• Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5
• Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts

Numerical Patterns - Early Learning Goal

• Verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system
• Compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity
• Explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, double facts and how quantities can be distributed equally

The Early Learning Goals define the level of development children are expected to attain by the end of the Reception year. The vast majority of pupils at Holy Family achieve these Early Learning Goals.

As with all other Areas of Learning, the teaching and learning of mathematics in our Reception classes takes place both indoors and outdoors through a wide range of practical and "hands on" activities.

The staff use their knowledge and expertise to plan for a high quality learning environment which provides children with lots of opportunities to explore different aspects of number and shape, space and measures and learn new concepts. The children have a wide range of structured play resources available to them throughout the year - this is known as "continuous provision". The adults model the use of these resources and the appropriate mathematical language as they support the children in their play.

Key Stage 1

The main focus within Mathematics in Key Stage 1 is to ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency within whole numbers, counting and place value and also to begin to embed these skills in their problem-solving. This involves working with numerals, words and the four operations. Children are encouraged to use mathematical vocabulary when discussing different topics. Mathematical vocabulary is displayed in classrooms and around our school to ensure that children have access to it on a day-to-day basis.

Key Stage 2

In Key Stage 2, children continue strengthening their knowledge and understanding of the four operations and apply this knowledge in a variety of ways solving problems and completing a variety of investigations.

At Holy Family, we acknowledge the importance of children being able to apply mathematical knowledge to real life experiences; it is essential, therefore, that children develop strong mental maths skills to achieve this. To become confident in developing mental maths strategies, the children must know their times tables. Regular practise is planned for in the delivery of Mathematics but we do ask that extra time is spent learning these number facts at home.

The 2014 Mathematics National Curriculum expects that by the end of Year 4, children will know all the times tables facts up to 12 x 12. We use a variety of approaches to support the children in this including the use of Times Tables Rockstars.

We are ambitious for all pupils to reach at least ARE, please see our website for our most recent results.

A range of formal and informal assessments are carried out by all teachers to ensure that each child progresses at their own rate. Throughout the school children are taught mathematics by their class teacher in mixed ability classes. All pupils have a daily mathematics lesson, in addition to the daily lesson, various intervention groups are in place in school to support all learners. There is also a discrete Arithmetic session across the school focusing on specific calculation methods.