Address:
William Patten Primary School
Stoke Newington Church Street
London N16 0NX
Office Manager: Rita Quigley
SENDCo: Caitlin Shaw
William Patten Primary School
Stoke Newington Church Street
London N16 0NX
Office Manager: Rita Quigley
SENDCo: Caitlin Shaw
Intent
The 2014 National Curriculum for Maths aims to ensure that all children:
At William Patten, these skills are embedded within Maths lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of Maths in the wider world and that they are also able to use their mathematical skills and knowledge confidently in their lives in a range of different contexts.
We want all children to enjoy Mathematics and to experience success in the subject, with the ability to reason mathematically. We are committed to developing children’s curiosity about the subject, as well as an appreciation of the beauty and power of Mathematics.
Implementation
The Maths curriculum at William Patten is aligned to the Mathematics Guidance: Key Stages 1 and 2 (2020)
This publication provides non-statutory guidance from the Department for Education, produced to help teachers and schools make effective use of the National Curriculum to develop primary school pupils’ mastery of mathematics. It aims to (p5):
The content and principles underpinning the 2014 Mathematics curriculum, the non-statutory 2020 guidance and the Maths curriculum at William Patten, reflect those found in high-performing education systems internationally, particularly those of east and south-east Asian countries. These include – Singapore, Japan, South Korea and China. These principles and features characterise this approach and convey how our curriculum is implemented:
Underpinning principles
Lesson design
In the classroom
To ensure whole consistency and progression, the school follows the national Oak Academy scheme https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/curriculum/maths-primary/overview
The curriculum is sequenced towards enabling children to achieve developmental ‘milestones’ within specific strands of mathematics. The milestones are identified as ‘Ready to Progress’ criteria, and they relate to progression within each of the following strands:
| NPV:
Number and Place Value |
NF:
Number Facts |
AS:
Addition and Subtraction |
MS:
Multiplication |
G: Geometry |
F:
Fractions |
The careful and purposeful sequencing of our curriculum content underpins its design, ensuring that pupils are able to build on and make links with existing knowledge. Mathematical topics are taught in blocks, which are broken down into smaller steps. This helps children understand concepts better and their knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts is developed over time.
This approach means that children do not cover too many concepts at once which can lead to cognitive overload.
Each lesson begins with a quick starter which provides practice and consolidation of key number fluency and arithmetic skills. The first part of the lesson generally focusses on key knowledge with a practical element, and ends with children recording their understanding by responding to related questions. Those who are quick to grasp new content are able to progress to further varied questions, which offer variation to extend children’s thinking. All children then review the solutions to these tasks, to secure conceptual understanding as a class. The second part of the lesson generally focusses on application. After focussed teaching, children will again record their understanding by responding to related questions, with the opportunity for progression to further varied questions, which the whole class review. The lesson ends with a whole class ‘exit quiz’. This provides the means for the teacher to consolidate the key learning from the lesson, as well as providing end of lesson formative assessment.
The school’s status as a mastery specialist school, as part of the DfE funded Maths Hubs programme, continues to ensure that staff at all levels understand the pedagogy of the approach.
Impact
The school has a supportive ethos and our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievement of others. Students can underperform in Mathematics because they think they cannot do it or are not naturally good at it. The school’s use of Oak Academy maths addresses these preconceptions by ensuring that all children experience challenge and success in Mathematics by developing a growth mindset.
Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching, as well as intervention, to support and enable the success of each child. These factors ensure that we are able to maintain high standards, with achievement at the end of KS2 well above the national average, as well an increasingly high proportion of children demonstrating greater depth at the end of each phase.
The sequencing and implementation of the maths curriculum enables children to:
‘Recognise and use connections among mathematical ideas; understand how mathematical ideas interconnect and build on one another to produce a coherent whole; recognise and apply mathematics in contexts outside of mathematics’.
(Annenberg Foundation, 2017)
A review of the teaching of maths at the school, carried out by Mastery Specialists from the London North East and London Thames Maths Hubs in January 2020, noted the following in their report on the teaching of mastery at the school –
‘During discussions with pupils, children were unanimously positive about Maths. Challenge and resilience were a key theme of discussions, with many of the children saying that working on difficult problems, not giving up and challenging themselves were their favourite parts of their Maths lessons at school. They were confident, engaged and talked passionately about the things that helped them learn Mathematics. All children commented on the use of concrete resources and visual representations as ways to help them learn. They also referenced drawing their ideas, working with their peers and practising as important parts of their learning experience.’
Having become a mastery specialist school with the London North East Maths Hub, the school offers regular within a network of local schools within this network. Participants take part in lesson studies at William Patten, as part of the recognised ‘Sustaining Teaching for Mastery’ programme. Throughout 2025-6, this will enable schools to work collaboratively on how they might use the Oak Academy Maths resources in their own settings. As the school itself is a participator within the workgroup it is hosting, its own teachers also take part in the professional development programme, and attend lesson studies as a stimulus for the associated professional development. The school will also continue to benefit from the subject leader’s continued participation in central training from the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics.
For further information on how we cover the objectives of the national curriculum, please see the documents below –
Calculation Policies –
Although the school follows the Oak Academy maths scheme, the progression in methods of calculation remains in line with the sequencing outlined in the following guidance documents:
In line with the Department for Education’s Maths Guidance for KS1 and KS2 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1017683/Maths_guidance_KS_1_and_2.pdf, the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) have identified the most important conceptual knowledge and understanding that pupils need as they progress from year 1 to year 6. These important concepts are referred to as ready-to-progress criteria and they are organised under the following strands:
The following parent workbooks are available to focus additional home support on these strands, although the content of these workbooks remains aligned to the sequencing of the 2020 National Curriculum:
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5 (part 1)
Year 5 (part 2)
Year 6
The printed copy of the above resources are available on request.
To further support your child’s number fluency, they can access to the Sumdog resource at home. Sumdog is an online learning tool which provides personalised maths practice that children love. It adapts questions to each child, using engaging games to build their confidence, and it’s been shown to accelerate progress. Sumdog helps children to practise regularly, combining questions from the curriculum with fun, child-friendly games. It is most beneficial when used regularly for short periods. Sumdog can be accessed on a computer, mobile or tablet at the following link:
All children have been provided with a unique username and password. Please let the school know if you would like another copy of your child’s login details.
